Coming Up for Fresh Air
by McIntern
Summary: For seven seasons, we've witnessed life at Seattle Grace Hospital from the perspective of Meredith Grey and her fellow residents. What if we had seen the story told by the one and only Derek Shepherd?
1. Chapter 1: I'm So Sick

Coming Up for Fresh Air

A Grey's Anatomy Fan Fiction

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is basically Grey's Anatomy from Derek Shepherd's point of view, because I personally think he's a really interesting character, and every time we see him in the show we never really Derek – we see McDreamy. I'm going to mostly stick to the story line, maybe change a few events here or there. _

_Anyway, you kind of have to be a fan of the series and know how the events go to really understand this story – this is from Derek's perspective so some things that happen to other characters that Derek wasn't present for will not be included. Unfortunately, if you don't already know the story you might really get lost without knowing why some of the events happen the way they do. Also, some things included in the story are treated as common knowledge – at least, for someone who knows the series._

**Chapter 1 - Escape Route**

Three days. It had been three days filled with silence and an overwhelming tension that made me want to just rip the door open and go away, anywhere. There couldn't be a place on Earth that I wanted to be less than my own house, with _her_ in it.

She had tried to plead for forgiveness the first night. She was sobbing, begging, and literally throwing herself at my feet. At one point, I had been so angry that I threw her clothes and those tainted sheets out on the front step, pushing her out with them. But it had been pouring down rain on the streets of New York last night – I had to let her back in, no matter how angry I was with her. That was it, though. She slept on the couch each night since.

The second day, of course, was Saturday and we both had off. She kept being insanely helpful, cooking me breakfast (Lord knew Addison had never cooked a full meal in her life), doing all of my laundry, and drawing a hot bath for me. I guess she was trying to compensate by doing all of those stereotypical wife things – as if she could make up for it now. Why couldn't she have committed this treason on a weekday, when I might have been able to go lose myself in my work? It was one of those odd weekends that we had nothing planned, no charity auctions or polo matches or galas. This worked in my favor, because I couldn't so much look at my wife, or be in the same room as she was – playing a loving couple in front of all of those society couples would have been excruciating.

At the same time, though, I had nowhere to be. Normally, on a weekend off, me and my best friend Mark would go to our favorite bar and shoot pool, banter with our other friends, like Weiss, and talk about the women Mark had been seeing.

There was no way I could call Mark this weekend. Not when he'd been the one Addison had thrown away our marriage with.

On this third day, the house was so stifling I wondered why I tortured myself by staying. At least, though, Addison had figured out that I didn't want her attention or even her presence. I sat in my father's favorite armchair, trying to figure out why I was even still there. I guess it was some twisted obligation to the institution of marriage. But really, how was I supposed to salvage this? True, I had been somewhat absent, but how did that justify what Addison did? She should have talked to me – isn't that what all the relationship experts kept spouting? _Communication is key to a successful marriage_?

Well, I couldn't bear to say my wife's name. If that wasn't a sign the marriage was dead, I didn't know what was.

As I sat, I swore I felt the walls closing in on me. I had to get out. I was about to grab the keys to my BMW off of the dark walnut end table when the phone rang. Desperate to talk to someone who wasn't my wife, I picked up before the first ring finished, without looking at the caller ID.

"Derek Shepherd," I said, already feeling relief as the words flowed out of my mouth. Living in my own head for the past three days had been too strenuous; talking to someone –anyone - would be good.

"Derek," a warm, older man's voice poured into the line. "It's Richard. How are you doing?"

Biting back the truth and deciding my old mentor didn't need to know about my problems right now, I took a breath before I answered. "Hello, Richard. I'm doing fine, thanks. I heard you moved back to Seattle."

"Yes, I did," Richard confirmed. "Adele didn't like being so far away from family, and when my fellowship in New York finished up there was really no reason we had to be. I'm back at Seattle Grace. It's where I did my residency."

"Good for you. I hope they're finally treating you with the respect you deserve," I said, smiling. Richard Webber had been my own resident when I had started…and Addison's. I really looked up to the older man, even as I progressed through my residency and my neuro fellowship and into my private neurosurgical practice. The other staff members in New York, however, looked down upon the man from the Pacific Northwest. New Yorkers, especially those in the upper crust, had the tendency to do that.

"I'd ask how you were doing, Derek, but looking at the latest national rankings of neurosurgeons I'm pretty sure I already know," Richard joked, his voice full of pride. I may not have been his student anymore, but he loved hearing about his old interns' accomplishments.

"Yes, well, I think you made me jump through enough hoops during my internship that I should be the top-ranking everything. You can start bowing to my expertise any day now," I said, grinning. My marriage may have been falling apart, but I was undoubtedly the best at what I did.

"Well, as much as I hate to admit this to you, that's part of the reason I'm calling you. They named me Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace, and we have a vacancy in Head of Neurosurgery. I have good neuro guys, but Seattle Grace is one of the top teaching hospitals in the country. I want the best. I want you," he said earnestly, his voice switching from friendly mentor to authoritative Chief.

I mulled it over in my head a bit. Seattle, compared to New York, was a bit in the middle of nowhere, but hadn't I said I needed to get away? It wasn't just Addison that was making me sick – Mark was here too. I needed to get far, far away from New York – and Seattle was just about the farthest from New York there was.

But I couldn't let Richard have me without a fight.

"I don't know, Richard. My practice is doing phenomenally, and I just don't know if I want to leave all this behind to go west."

"Derek, obviously you'd be well compensated. We're talking a $2 million a year starting contract – obviously the longer you're here the higher it goes, and with your talent we'll have neuro cases coming in left and right. It'd be great publicity, for you and the hospital. And the Chief of Surgery has a strong recommendation when it comes to choosing his successor – how would you like to be Chief of Surgery of one of the nation's leading hospitals in ten years?"

I thought the offer over. Private practice was lucrative, but also boring. It was mostly rich businessmen wanting their brain tumors removed so they could continue to ignore their children and alienate their families. The hospital setting provided a much wider set of challenges, and the promise of Chief of Surgery, especially for a hospital as renowned as Seattle Grace, was a definite draw. And I did want to get away from New York…

Richard misread my silence. "I understand, of course, if you want to talk it over with Addison."

"No." It came out much more forceful than I intended it to. "Tell you what, give me five days and I'll fly out. I just need to straighten some things out here before I leave."

"Oh," Richard said, the pitch of his voice unnaturally high. He was clearly surprised that I was so interested in picking up and moving across the country. "Is everything all right over there?"

"No, it isn't," I said, registering something moving near the doorway. Addison obviously caught part of the conversation. "But I'll tell you about it when I get there. I'll see you on Friday."

"Alright, Derek. I'm looking forward to seeing you here on my turf." I hung up the phone and turned around. It was the first time I had looked her in the eye since I found her in bed with my best friend.

"Where are you flying out to?" she asked, emphasis heavy on the first word. The accusation in her voice fanned my anger.

"Don't you think you've lost the right to know?" I said icily, trying to be dispassionate. I didn't want to get out of control.

"I'm still your wife, you know. You can't just pack up and leave and not tell me where you're going."

I had to fight the harsh words I wanted to respond with. How dare she? "Not much longer, you're not. Before I leave, I'm calling the lawyer."

"Derek, no, you can't do this!" She was getting upset. "I've said I'm sorry, I want you to trust me again. I know it will take time. I want it, I'm willing to do whatever I have to, wait however long I have to. I just want to save this. I want to save _us_."

"Addison." I turned to face the window of our living room, looking out at Central Park. "I can barely tolerate to be in the same house as you. I need to leave for awhile. I'm going to Seattle. Richard's Chief of Surgery, and needs a Head of Neurosurgery. I can't be in New York with you and Mark. I need to clear my head. The last thing I want is you hovering around me." I spoke in a flat monotone, defeated. She would have preferred it if I had yelled. Anger, she could deal with. Giving up, that didn't bode so well for Addison. She couldn't fight for us if I wouldn't let her.

"What about your practice?" she said quietly after a few minutes. "What about your family? Your life is here, Derek."

"That's the problem. My life is here – and so are you."

"You really can't stand me that badly – that you need to move across the country?"

"I don't know what I need – I only know that I can't do this. Not now."

I picked up the keys of the BMW that I had set down to answer the Chief's call. I heard Addison begin to cry again; softer than that first night, but she wasn't holding back, either. The worst part was that it killed me to say those things to her – but all of it was true, and I couldn't leave her with hope that I wanted to fix this.

I grabbed my briefcase on the way out, as well as a duffel bag I'd had packed since the first night. I had been about to leave several times, but had decided against it each time. This time I knew.

I pulled the BMW out of the residential parking lot and just drove. I didn't know where to go at first. Before, if Addison kicked me out, I went to stay with Mark, but that obviously wasn't an option. I circled the upper class neighborhood in Manhattan for awhile, passing all of the identical brownstones, until suddenly I knew who I had to tell.

I put my Bluetooth on my ear and dialed the second number on my speed dial. Right after Addison's – that would have to change. I listened for five rings, and finally, a warm voice picked up.

"Derek," my mother greeted. "How are you?"

"Not so good, actually, Mom. Do you mind if I come over for a few days?"

"You know you're always welcome here, Derek. Did you and Addison fight?"

"You could say that. I'll tell you when I get there."

"Of course, Derek."

"Thanks, I love you, Mom."

"I love you, too, Derek. I'll see you soon."

_McIntern: One big event I'm not sure if I'll change or not is "pick me, choose me, love me" – the part where Derek has to choose between Addison and Meredith. I am personally a big fan of MerDer but it would add a lot of interesting tension, especially from Derek's point of view, but I also think if I wrote it my way it would be an interesting deviation from the prewritten plotlines. They eventually end up in the same place anyway, right? If you have an opinion either way, please let me know, as well as any comments, questions, or concerns about the story. I welcome constructive criticism – I really want this to be a story people are interested in reading!_


	2. Chapter 2: Shut Up and Let Me Go

_Author's Note: First off, I'd like to thank everybody who is reading out there – you guys are awesome! I've gotten tons of positive feedback – but of course, if you have anything you'd like to comment on, feel free! The more I think about it, the more changes I'd like to make to the original story – nothing too drastic, but tweaks that affect the timeline and plots a bit. But I swear I won't do anything out of character. And if you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know! This was originally going to be about half the size, but I merged it with the third chapter. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a chemistry final to study for!_

**Chapter 2 – Shut Up and Let Me Go**

The drive to my mother's house was a fairly lengthy one – we New Yorkers rarely have to drive farther than 15 minutes to get anywhere – but one that flew by because I drove without thinking of the road. I watched it, certainly, but I was taking inventory in my mind of what I needed to do before I left for Seattle. Hopefully, I wouldn't come back for awhile.

Obviously, I had to book a flight and a hotel room. Call the lawyer about starting divorce proceedings. Sell the practice. Get the essentials out of the brownstone. There wasn't really anything in the Hamptons I wanted – Addison and I only ventured there on the rare vacation. That was it – everything else could either wait or I could do in Seattle.

My mother still lived in the same little suburb of New York City – though with my sisters' and my help she now lived in a much nicer house. The old one was too small, and in shambles, and had too many memories of Dad. That was one of the benefits of having five children who are all doctors.

I still found it funny, as I clicked the garage door opener to her house, that she left half of her two-car garage empty, in case one of her children should show up. It was just her living in the house, but she didn't have a single possession occupying the other half of the garage. I eased the BMW into the wide open space, shut off the engine, and left my briefcase on the passenger side seat.

Carolyn Shepherd is the kind of person who gives all of her kids keys to the house and tells them never to knock on her door. We are always welcome in her house, no matter what time of day we happen to be stopping in. She also always has the guest bedroom set up. I call, of course, because I never truly feel comfortable just showing up, especially in the state I was in this night.

I had grabbed the duffel out of my trunk and entered the house– I was planning on using my mother's house as home base until I left for Seattle. Not that she knew I was leaving yet, of course, or why for that matter.

My mother was sitting in the kitchen, reading the Sunday _Times_ and drinking a hot cup of tea. When she saw me enter she put both down and gave me a big hug.

"Oh, Derek, it feels like such a long time!" she said, her head buried in my chest, and not letting go. "When was the last time we all got together? Easter?"

Ah yes, Easter. That particular holiday was memorable – Addison and I had not spoken to each other the whole week, due to work, and were having a hard time presenting a united front as a couple in front of my mom and four sisters. They're the type to analyze every move you make – they all knew that our marriage was floundering.

"Well, I'm here now, Mom. You don't have any coffee brewing, do you?"

She looked up at me, beaming, and finally let go. "Of course, Derek, I always have coffee ready when you come. Hope you don't mind I tried a new variety this time – the package says it's vanilla biscotti."

I laughed. Even though she got plenty of financial support from the five of us, twenty years of raising five kids (six if you counted Mark) on a nurse's salary still had her buying store brand everything. "That's great, Mom. I could really use some."

"No offense, Der, but you look it. Now, would you like to tell me what's going on?" She poured the coffee into a mug Nancy had made in her high school ceramics class, and set it down in front of me.

I sighed deeply. "Addison cheated on me."

"Oh my God, Derek, I'm so sorry. I mean, I knew you two were having a tough time, but this?"

I couldn't help but smile a little. They were an intuitive bunch, the Shepherd women. Not much got past them.

"It was kind of a progression, you know? Ever since she finished the genetics fellowship and got her own practice, it's like we were just two people living in the same house. Well, except for the fact that she kept dragging me to her fundraising dinners every Saturday night." I made a face. My mother was the only one who knew how much I despised the obligations that came with being wealthy in New York. Addison was born for the part, and my sisters fell into the role quite easily, too, but it had never been one I was truly comfortable in.

"'Were', Derek? You're using the past tense. You're not going to try to make it work? That's not like you," she said, raising one eyebrow. Like I said, she picks up on even the slightest hints.

"What's the point? She never tried to talk with me. She just let things keep going like they were until I come home one night and find Mark in our bed."

"Wait, she slept with MARK?" My mother was astonished. Mark's family had never been really available, so during our youth he spent much of the time at our house. Mom claimed to "practically raise him".

"C'mon, Mom, it's not like we didn't know he had a reputation for sleeping with inappropriate women."

"But still…oh, Derek. She probably just needed someone to turn to and Mark took advantage. You know how he is. You can't hold Addison responsible for this. You need to give her a second chance."

"…I can't. I look at her, and I get so angry. She talks to me, and I get sick. I can't even be in the same room with her. How can I give her a second chance if I can't even tolerate her presence?"

"It will get better. You just need to work at it."

"Mom!" I shouted, standing out of the chair. "Don't you defend her! Addison's a grown woman. She had every ability to tell him to stop, to get the hell out! And when I walked in there…she looked pretty responsible." I spat out the last words.

I fell back into the chair, cradling my head in my hands. I had been trying so hard not to imagine the actual scene I had witnessed. I had tried to just be mad at Addison, to try and forget exactly why I was so mad at her. But I couldn't defend her. No one could. She brought this upon herself.

"I see." My mother was quiet, and looked me right in the eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mom, it's just that…I'm not sure I _want___it to work. Maybe this is a sign. We weren't talking at all. Maybe it's not _supposed_ to work. I think it's a sign that it's over…but of course, Addison's feeling so sorry for herself right now she can't see that."

"Well, I still think you should try," she qualified. "But if it's not what you want, I have to support that."

We sat silent there for a few moments. She finished her tea and brought it to the sink, and then sat back down. She returned her eyes right to mine. She has a way of looking straight through your words, and at your eyes. She always said _the truth is in the eyes_.

"So, what are you going to do?" It was the question I had been waiting for.

"Well, Richard called earlier, actually."

"Dr. Webber? Oh, how is he? I haven't seen him in the longest time." Her voice had immediately brightened. My mother had nurtured a bit of a crush on my old resident, and while he was still in New York, he and his wife Adele had been over for dinner at her house a few times.

"Actually, he moved back to Seattle. He's now Chief of Surgery at one of the top hospitals in the country – and he wants me to come and be his Head of Neurosurgery."

She had been smiling and nodding, happy for him, until I got to the part where I was moving to Seattle. Her face fell.

"Seattle? So far away…you aren't seriously considering?"

"Mom, I need to get away. Addison's here, Mark's here. I've been spending the last three days looking for a reason to leave. Richard's given me that reason."

"But what about your life here?" She looked at me with pain in her eyes. I felt for her – none of us had ever lived far from my mother for longer than it took to finish college.

"Mom, I'm not trying to make you suffer. But I am suffering here. I need to be far away from here. And the private practice was getting boring. A hospital will be a much better use of my talent." I grinned, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't work.

"But do you really have to make a transcontinental move to do that?"

"Did I mention there's a $2 million contract?"

"You make more than that now."

"It's not about the money. It's about starting fresh, going somewhere where no one knows that my wife cheated on me with my best friend. It's about being somewhere where I don't have to be angry every day because everything reminds me of Addison."

I finished my coffee, and she whisked the mug away to the sink. I don't know where they got the biscotti from – it was just coffee with vanilla extract. I hoped she hadn't paid more because it was a "premium blend".

She sat back down. I was beginning to think the trips to the sink were just excuses to mull my words over.

"Well, I wish you wouldn't. But, again, if it's what you feel you need to do, then do it. You don't deserve to suffer."

"Thanks, Mom." I stood up and hugged her.

"But you have to promise to come back for Christmas. And your sisters and I get to visit you."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course, Mom."

"You should really get to bed, Der."

"Mom, it's 9 o'clock. I haven't gone to bed at 9 since I was 8."

"You look like you haven't been sleeping well."

I shifted uncomfortably. "I've been sleeping in the guest bedroom."

"The one with the uncomfortable mattress?" Mom had stayed in that bedroom a number of times.

"Yeah, that's the one. I can't sleep in the master bedroom…it's where it happened."

Her eyes got very wide. "Oh…of course. Yes. Well, I assure you my mattress is very comfortable," she said, awkwardly.

"It always is, Mom. Good night." I kissed her on the cheek and threw the duffel bag over my shoulder.

"And make sure you brush your teeth!" she called up after me.

Rolling my eyes, I tossed the duffel onto the admittedly comfortable mattress and got out my toothbrush.

The rest of the week flew by – my days were full, as I had a lot of arrangements to make before I flew to Seattle on Thursday afternoon. I would be staying in the nicest hotel in Seattle, The Archfield, but I hoped I could find somewhere to live before too long. I didn't think it was possible to live in a hotel long-term.

I made arrangements with my lawyer to sell the practice. It wouldn't be too hard for a practice with such an established reputation and a horde of wealthy clients to sell for a decent amount of money. I made a clause in the selling agreement that whoever took over had to either retain my two other doctors or provide them with a nice severance package. I couldn't allow Drs. Pearson and Woodward to be thrown out just because I had to get the hell out of New York.

As for the divorce proceedings, I ended up putting them on hold. For one thing, Addison would not come into the office with me, and for another, it seemed too soon. Yes, I was moving across the country, but divorce was permanent. My sisters and mother encouraged me to cool down in Seattle before I did anything drastic. Not that my sisters supported my choice – my sister, Nancy, an OB/GYN who, due to her profession, had always gotten on best with Addison, encouraged me to give her a second chance, and stay in New York to see how things went. Pamela and Candace didn't directly oppose my decision, but thought it was hasty and that I'd regret it. Kathleen, the psychiatrist in the family, told me that as a psychiatrist she thought I was doing the right thing, by distancing myself from the situation and trying new things to see if a life with Addison would be better for me. But, she followed, as my sister, she thought I didn't need to go so far away, and that it would be really tough on Mom. None of us had ever lived more than two hours away from her house longer than it took to go to school – I was going to be living in a different time zone.

Addison had obviously picked up on the fact that I didn't want to hear from her – Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday had all passed without hearing a word from her. On Wednesday night, though, I decided it was time to go back to the brownstone to pick up my belongings to bring to Seattle with me. I knew this would mean a confrontation with Addison; it was her last chance to stop me, her last chance to beg me to come home. I had no doubt that Nancy was keeping her informed of my every move – that I was selling the practice, making plans. If Addison wanted the marriage to work as much as she said she did, I could be sure I'd meet resistance on that last night.

As I drove out to Manhattan for what I hoped to be the last time for awhile, I tried to prepare myself mentally for what Addison would try to do. I didn't think she'd sob or beg this time – that had been in the heat of the moment. More likely, she'd ask me earnestly if this was really what I wanted. She'd ask one more time if we could try to make it work. She'd apologize sincerely, once again, for good measure. And I would politely deny her every time.

I pulled up to the house and parked in front of a parking meter. I put in four quarters, knowing that would be way more time than I needed. I walked in the front door and aimed straight for the stairs.

I pulled out my two travelling suitcases from the walk-in. All of my toiletries, pajamas, and important casual clothes were in my duffel back at my mother's house. This time, I pulled out suits and ties, polar fleeces and heavy jackets (apparently it gets cold in Seattle), nice shoes and hiking boots. I had already retrieved my diploma from Columbia from my office – I pulled down the one from Bowdoin as well. Books, CDs, DVDs, the photo album Pamela made me as a high school graduation present, my guitar, the picture of my mother I kept on my desk in the study – all went in.

I looked around. Everything else in the house had been Addison's contribution. The posh furniture, abstract and meaningless art, books about nothing in particular. Everything I had in my suitcase – those were the only real pieces of me in the house. The rest was a testament to Addison and her tastes. Tastes that Mark would be more at home with than I was. Another reason I couldn't live here anymore.

Sure enough, as I brought the suitcases down stairs, Addison stood at the bottom of the steps. Her eyes were red, but she didn't appear to have lost it. When I reached the bottom, I put the suitcases down, sat on the bottom step, and prepared to hear her out.

"So you're really leaving," she said. It wasn't a question, but a statement. She was resigned to it. Nancy clearly had her well-informed of my movements.

"Yes," I said, quietly, calmly. "I think it's better this way – we'll both have time to breathe."

"I didn't want this," she half-whispered. She looked at me, unshed tears glistening in her eyes. "I really don't know how it happened, Derek."

I sighed. When was she going to understand that I didn't care how it happened? But I didn't want to leave her like that. "I know," I said, in the same tone. "I wish that were enough for me."

"Well, I'm not going to stop you," she said, blinking back the tears. "But I do hope you'll come back – eventually. I know I haven't made this a place for you to come back to…but I'm working on that."

"That's good," I said, standing up. Addison leaned in for a hug, but I bent down to pick up the suitcases. I couldn't touch her right now. "Goodbye, Addison."

"Goodbye, Derek," she said, her voice breaking. She held the door open for me as I carried my belongings out to the BMW.

I loaded the baggage into the trunk and got into the driver's seat, turning the ignition. I shifted into drive, and shot one last look back at the place I had called home for the last three years. Addison sat, looking dejected, on the front step. As I pulled away, I saw her eyes follow the progress of the car in the rearview mirror.

_Author's Note: I'm not sure if Derek's mother came across the way I wanted her to. I want her to look pretty affectionate, but a force to be reckoned with when it comes to her children. She might not have initially liked Addison a whole lot, but now she wonders if Derek's making a huge mistake. Just to clarify._

_I'm trying to get to Meredith as quickly as possible without rushing the self-exploration that leads Derek to finding her. Please bear with me!_


	3. Chapter 3: Wide Open Spaces

_Author's Note: I'm soooo sorry for the wait! I really thought I'd be more productive over the holidays – but apparently not. But, the good news is, we're finally going to meet Meredith in the next chapter! Yay! Also, I hope nobody gets really mad if I take the story in my own direction a little. I think it will be more interesting for everyone to read if I don't follow the series to the letter. Believe me, there will still be plenty of MerDer drama to keep you reading – I'm just going to approach it a bit differently. If you stay along for the ride, I don't think you'll be disappointed. Also, I feel the need to mention that I do not own these characters or plotlines – they belong to the wonderful writers of Grey's Anatomy. I am simply borrowing them for my own amusement._

**Chapter 3 – Wide Open Spaces**

I stepped out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and into the pouring rain. I'd heard of the city's legendary rainfall but forgot to prepare myself for it. Holding my old duffel bag over my head in a vain attempt to avoid getting too wet, I stuck my hand out towards the street to hail a cab. Within ten seconds, I was putting my bags into the taxi's back seat. In New York, it could have taken easily ten times longer. Then again, there were few places like New York.

I walked over to the passenger's side backseat of the cab. The cabbie, a man of Mediterranean descent, turned to look at me through his thick lenses. "So, signor, where would you like to go?"

"The Archfield Hotel, please. Extra tip if it's fast."

"You weren't very prepared for the weather in the Pacific Northwest, were you?"

I knew what he meant. Only an outsider would wear just a flannel shirt and jeans outside of the airport in Washington. Though I hadn't waited long, I was still fairly damp, and the cabbie turned down the air conditioning in the cab. It may have been July but the dampness with the cold air chilled me to the bone.

"No, I wasn't. But thanks."

The cabbie, being the tricky type, completed a 25 minute journey in 18. As I stepped out of the cab in front of the Archfield, I gave him a 50% tip, grabbed my bags, and waved as he drove away.

The Archfield was a gorgeous building for Seattle – in New York it would probably be considered in the upper medium. I walked in the revolving doors and checked in. I was given a suite on the third floor and I followed the bus boy up to the room to settle down and prepare for tomorrow.

I was surprised when I arrived at the room to see the room service staff approaching the room as well.

"Excuse me," I said, not wanting to have extra charges before I even entered the room. "I didn't order any room service."

"Dr. Derek Shepherd?" the young woman asked.

"Yes, that's me, but you see I haven't even entered the room yet, so I couldn't have…"

"This food is complements of a Dr. Richard Webber. He left a note with us, as well," she said, gesturing towards the dining cart her coworker was pushing.

"Oh, well in that case, go right on ahead," I said, and as soon as the bus boy retreated the room service staff whisked the dining cart in. They left two silver trays on the table, as well as the note in a sprawling script that even today I would recognize as Richard's.

"Thank you very much," I said to the two young workers. The young woman nodded, and both left me alone.

First things first, I examined the food. It was a relief to not have to find some place to eat – my mother had, as always, packed me a lunch for the plane ride but forgotten that I didn't like tuna fish. There had been tears in her eyes when she handed the paper bag off to me in front of JFK. I felt bad for leaving my mother, but knew it was for the best.

There was a Cornish game hen with stuffing and green bean amandine, as well as two cannoli with coffee-flavored cream. Richard knew me well. Before I ate, I looked at the note.

_Derek – _

_ Your next two meals are on me. Meet me for breakfast tomorrow at Camparos. We'll discuss your contract there…among other things. Looking forward to seeing you again._

_Richard_

I grinned. Richard treated his favorites well. I couldn't complain. But before I ate my bribe, I had one last piece of business to take care of.

I dialed speed dial number two on the ever present Blackberry. Mom picked up after half of a ring.

"Derek! I take it you've arrived safely?" my mother's anxious voice asked.

"Yes, Mom, I'm here and I'm fine. Seattle's a nice little city, you'd like it. Though they weren't lying when they said it rains all the time." I closed the curtains to avoid having to look at the cloudy gray sky.

"Very good, dear. I have your sisters over for dinner."

"Discussing how much you miss me already?" I teased.

"I just want to keep the rest of my family as close as I can," she said, only half-joking.

"Well, I just wanted to check in with you. I'm already feeling the jet lag. Love you," I said, trying to avoid a litany of "why we'll miss you" from my mother. She was a mistress of guilt trips.

"You get some rest, Der. You need to be on your game to negotiate with Richard tomorrow. Send him my regards! I love you too!" she said hurriedly. It sounded like one of my nieces – probably Candace's youngest, Jillian – was getting into my mother's Precious Moments collection.

I hung up the phone and began eating my dinner. The five-hour flight had left New York at 4:30, which meant it was probably that although it was only 7:30 here on the West Coast, it was 10:30 in…I refused to call it home. Back there.

I quickly put some things in the closet and in the bathroom, and organized my briefcase for the morning. Luckily the Archfield was very close to the rental car place, so after breakfast with Richard I would be scouting out some properties to rent with a real estate contact. After that, I would head to the department store to get everything I couldn't bring with me from New York. I wanted to get out of that suite as soon as possible, and into a real house.

As I drifted off to sleep, I briefly wondered what Addison was doing back at home. Some evil part of me wanted her to be suffering. My conscience dogged me, though – was it really all her fault? Doesn't it take two to send a marriage to hell?

_No_, I thought. _She always had a choice. She could have chosen to make it better – but she didn't. She chose to make it worse._

I woke up the next morning exhausted. I hadn't slept well, tossing and turning and waking up a lot during the night. I got ready for lunch with Richard, and hoped against all hope it didn't show.

Though it wasn't technically an interview – Richard needed me for the job much more than I needed the job – I dressed in my favorite suit (one of the few Addison hadn't bought me). I inspected myself in the mirror. Hair perfect, as always. Suit fit well and looked professional, authoritative, and no-nonsense. There weren't even bags or dark circles under my eyes. I grinned.

I left the Archfield and walked two blocks down the street to the rental car station. A young man with shaggy hair (he could use a lesson or two in hair care) was behind the counter, looking apathetic.

"Hi, my name is Derek Shepherd, and I reserved a town car," I said, looking at my watch.

The clerk typed lackadaisically at the computer.

"Derek Shepherd, you said?" I nodded.

"Um, yeah, there's been, like, a problem. You see, we, uh, overbooked our sedans. It's like, some thing with a bunch of hospital interns all coming into town, and like, there's also this photography convention in town…"

I shook my head. "So what does this mean to me? I don't have a car?"

"Well, we, um, have some cars left. But, um, it's a Jeep."

I shook my head in exasperation. "You know what, that'll be fine. I just need something."

I gave him my credit card, he filled out the necessary paperwork, and I suddenly had the keys to the tank.

I walked out to the lot, which, true to the clerk's word was for the most part empty - except for the behemoth lurking directly outside the door to the counter. This wasn't simply a Jeep – this looked like something right out of Desert Storm.

Trying to hold back the curses attempting to escape under my breath, I opened a door to the monster vehicle and swung a leg up. This was a far cry from the BMW I had left behind in New York.

_You did say you wanted a fresh start, didn't you?_ a petulant voice in the back of my mind needled.

Unsurprisingly, sitting in the driver's seat felt like gazing from the top of Mount Everest. I stared at the gear shift – thankfully the BMW had a manual transmission so I would be able to drive the damn thing. But the shift pattern was bizarre - going from neutral to first was a zig-zag. It was going to be fun driving this thing.

When I reached Camparos, I hid my monster car in the back of the parking lot, in hopes that Richard would not be able to make fun of it if he couldn't see it. It was beginning to grow on me – it felt like I was driving on a pedestal, far above all other motorists.

The waitress took my name, and walked briskly back to a booth in the middle of the restaurant, far from either window. It was just like Richard to conduct business in private, where no one – colleague or rival – could spy on him.

When we finally got to the table, I asked the waitress for a black coffee and orange juice while Richard stood. She trotted off – it amazed me how fast people moved when they didn't have lives to save.

"Derek," Richard said, with a strong, authoritative handshake. "It feels like it's been so long."

"My mother sends her regards," I said, despite myself. She'd kill me if it got back to her that I hadn't, anyway.

"How is Carolyn doing?" he inquired. He had always held a soft spot for Mom, even if it wasn't quite as soft as hers was for him.

"Honestly, she's a little unhappy with my moving here, but other than that she's as well as can be."

"To be honest," Richard said, his face hard to read, "I'm a little surprised you jumped at the opportunity. I expected weeks of trying to tempt you out here."

"Well, after we settle my contract, maybe I'll enlighten you," I said, grinning. "For a price, of course."

"Naturally. I'm not going to beat around the bush – we both know you're the best there is. I can offer you $2 million a year, starting, with a salary evaluation every five years you stick with us. Seattle Grace has one of the best benefits packages – health insurance, life insurance, 3 weeks vacation – the works. We've got cutting-edge surgical technology and our residents are the best of the bunch. We provide research grants and if you want to be published, you'll get it."

"Who else do you have?"

"Our marquee surgeon is Preston Burke – cardiothoracics, graduated first in his class at Johns Hopkins. He's our Head of Cardio. You'll be in good company."

"Alright, Richard, all of that sounds great, but really, other than as a favor to you, why should I be here and not anywhere else in the country?"

"You're trying to see if I was kidding about the Chief of Surgery part."

"Well, you didn't bring it up, I felt it was necessary."

Richard sighed. "Well, Derek, naturally as one of my students I consider you the best, rankings notwithstanding. And when I retire, I want only the best to take up the office. The board has the final decision, but whoever I recommend just needs the nameplate on the desk. I don't know when I'm going to retire, Shep, and I can't promise it will be soon, but I want you here when I do."

"Well, Richard, you drive a hard bargain. But seeing as I'm here already, I suppose I can be your Head of Neurosurgery."

"Excellent, Derek. Here you are," he said, withdrawing the hefty contract and a pen from his briefcase.

"Now, just you wait a second," I said, my voice dangling the carrot. "I come from New York, the capital of litigation. I'll be faxing a copy to my lawyer before I go signing anything. Who knows what you could be having me agree to?"

Richard shook his head, but laughed. "I'm shocked you didn't bring your lawyer with you today."

"Well, there's a first time for everything."

"So, now that you've sucked the hospital dry, are you going to tell me why you're really here? Why you hopped on a plane after I just mention the words "Chief of Surgery"?"

I looked him in the eye. "Addison cheated on me. With my best friend." The words stung – with all of the Seattle business, it had been somewhat numbed.

Richard looked shocked. "Addie…you…no! God, Derek, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, she is, too," I muttered sarcastically.

"Surely, she couldn't have meant it, Derek, you can't just run out here because she made a…"

"Richard," I said pleadingly. "Please don't tell me she just made a mistake. Because she seemed to be enjoying herself before I caught her. I cannot stand to be in her presence – it's over. I just want to get away from it all; I just want to go somewhere where no one knows my wife is an adulterous whore."

Richard flinched; he had been close with Addison, as she was another of his prodigies. But, to his credit, he didn't try to defend her again. Everyone eventually realized that I didn't think Addison deserved a second chance, and in this decision, my opinion was the only one that mattered.

We caught up over eggs Benedict, and Richard was careful not to mention Addison again. He talked about Adele, and his niece Camille's heartbreaking cancer diagnosis. I told him about my nieces and nephews, and my plans for Seattle.

"I'm honestly not sure where I'm going to live yet," I said. "Actually, after this I have an appointment with a realtor to go looking for some places."

"Well, if you see anything in Queen Anne's Hill, take it," Richard said helpfully. "It's a beautiful neighborhood. I used to…know someone who lived there."

I looked at my watch. "I'd better get going – don't want to be late to go buy a house." I shook Richard's hand again.

"Good to see you Derek," he said warmly. And then, suddenly, his tone resumed its businesslike tone. "Let me know as soon as your lawyer's looked at the contract. And, if you're interested, we're having a mixer for the new interns on Sunday night. It would be a good place to meet the staff and your students."

An intern mixer sounded like the exact opposite of what I'd like to do before my first day. Maybe fun for the neophytes, but for me it sounded suspiciously like chaperoning the middle school dance.

"Maybe, Richard. I'll see you Monday morning regardless."

"Great, Derek, but do yourself a favor and stop in Sunday afternoon regardless. I'll give you the keys to your office and give you the rundown."

"Great, I will." I stalked out of the restaurant, and sped out of the parking lot in the monster Jeep before Richard could get out to his car.

I felt bad for the realtor – she seemed nice enough, but she was clearly flustered when I turned down most of the nice homes in Seattle. Even one in Queen Anne's Hill, like Richard suggested – its many empty rooms only reminded me of the emptiness of the Manhattan brownstone.

"Is there anything else you can show me?" I said apologetically. I was sure the girl was cursing her luck.

"Well, there's some open land on Bainbridge Island – but all that's there is a trailer, and you'd have to take a ferry to get to Seattle Grace. I really don't think it's what you're in the market for."

"How much land?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.

The realtor stumbled a moment while she tried to figure out why I was suddenly so interested. "Forty acres, I think?"

"Can you show me?"

"Dr. Shepherd, it's going to take at least a half an hour to get there, and I really don't think that it would be a suitable match –"

"Great, let's go." I was excited. While it had its drawbacks, Seattle was gorgeous, and to have all that wild west wilderness in my backyard would be phenomenal. I'd always loved camping with my father up until his death. The situation seemed perfect. No large, looming house to remind me of my failed marriage – but room to build one when I found the right one. And though my sisters would be mortified to learn that I was living in a trailer, the idea just seemed cozy to me. Room for me – and no one else. Especially not the memories.

When we finally arrived, I bounded out of the car like a kid and looked at the view from the hill. It was beautiful – you could see the whole city from here. The longer commute and less than glamorous living conditions were a small price to pay. There was room for my thoughts to get lost and never come back. There was room for a new future, a new Derek, a new life.

I ran to the trailer, which the realtor had unlocked while trying to contain her amusement. It wasn't much, but it was enough for me. My own space, free of Addison – I'd take what I could get.

"Sold," I told the flabbergasted real estate agent.

_Author's Note: So, there you go! I always wondered why Derek, after living the high life in New York, would live in a trailer in the woods, but I think as I wrote this part it became more clear. In his effort to get his mind off of Addison, he's choosing to live his life in a way Addison never would. _

_Like I said, I'm sorry for the delays, but now that life is back on track we'll be entering the Grey's Anatomy canon – and then straying from it a bit. What's in store for you, fair readers? Well, I'll dangle some spoilers to keep you guys interested – we're going to learn why Derek kept his marriage from Meredith. And for the first time, we're going to get a good look at Mer through Derek's eyes. I've started watching the first season over again (so thankful I got Seasons 1-5 on DVD for Christmas – it makes research a lot easier! I rewatched the last episode in the William Dunn arc in order to properly describe the War Machine (my pet name for Derek's jeep)) and the adoration Derek has for Meredith really shows, if you're looking for it. I assure you, if you're looking for a new way to watch old Grey's, just watch the body language of the characters! You know the story, but watching the characters really gives you insight into their true feelings. But anyway, I am rambling. Happy reading!_


	4. Chapter 4: About a Girl

_McIntern: Well, this chapter was tough, I'm not going to lie. Still not sure it's exactly where I'd like it to be, but I'd like to move on so we can get to more important things. I think I basically have sketched out where Derek and Meredith's relationship will differ a bit from the one depicted in the series – just tweaks to the timeline, mostly, and I omitted plotlines I didn't like. I was tentative about it but if I can't make my own fanfic the way I want it go…then what do I have? Anyway, I don't think it will be boring – there will be drama. It wouldn't be Grey's if it wasn't._

**Chapter 4 – About a Girl**

I sat in the back of the bar. Time flies when you're not trapped in a house with your adulterous wife.

The remainder of the week had been an adventure. I moved from the suite at the Archfield to my little trailer on Bainbridge Island – the owner wanted to be rid of it so he'd expedited the paperwork. I was already the proud owner of forty acres of Seattle forest. I'd bought the War Machine from the rental car place, too – sometimes the roads on the island could get rough, and the personality of the beast had begun to grow on me. The manager had been desperate to get it off the lot – it made a mockery of the establishment. I didn't care – I had a car you couldn't simply find on any lot in America. It seemed that was the theme of my life in Seattle thus far – one man's trash is Derek Shepherd's treasure.

With most of my life established now, I had gone in to see Richard on Sunday afternoon to get the tour of my new home away from home, Seattle Grace Hospital. It was truly a state-of-the-art facility, I had to admit. You don't get into the top 5 teaching hospitals with any less. I was hopeful that work here would stave off the boredom that accompanied private practice, and I was hopeful that life in Seattle would stave off the pain that accompanied New York.

My office was much smaller than the one in the practice, but to have my own space in such a prestigious hospital was indicative of my position. All that was in there was my nameplate, a desk, a chair, a bookshelf, and a couch that went nicely with the paint and carpet. I made a note to bring in my favorite Matisse print and hang it on the back wall. My Columbia diploma would need to be reframed as well. Unfortunately, none of the other attendings from the department were there to meet me – they were all getting ready for the mixer, and the attending on call was in the middle of a difficult tumor resection that would take hours.

With sufficient knowledge of how life at Seattle Grace worked, I made a beeline out of the hospital before the new interns could come in and ruin my evening. Thankfully, the Emerald City Bar was right across the street from the hospital.

Truthfully, I didn't know why I was there. For some reason I had worn my favorite shirt to the hospital, the red one Addison had called "the Ladykiller". Mark had never liked it, oddly enough. Maybe he resented the competition.

_Well, we know who got the last laugh on that matter, don't we_? The voice was teasing me in my head again.

In an uncharacteristic move, I did not immediately go to the bar. I simply sat at a table in the back, ordered some bar food, and thought. I had tried to squash down the thoughts ever since I'd arrived, but maybe I needed to address them.

Addison had been giving me the silent treatment ever since I left – not that I minded. But it did make me wonder. She had fought so hard, as hard as I would let her, to try and get me back. Had she wisely realized that I was a lost cause – or did she decide she didn't want it enough? It was out of character for her, either way I looked at it. Then again, so was cheating. I tried once again to push her out of my mind.

As if it could read my thoughts, the Blackberry started buzzing. She couldn't know I was thinking about her, could she? My next, less paranoid thought was my mother. But when I looked at the caller ID, I was in for a shock.

"Call from Mark Sloan", the Blackberry announced.

A fierce, animalistic rage tore through my subdued anger when I heard the name called aloud. The rational Derek would never have picked up the phone – he'd have let it go to voicemail. But rational Derek was gone.

I stalked off to the bathroom and picked it up. "Mark?"

"Derek?" the voice said, clearly as astounded as I was that I was answering. "Is that really you?"

"Of course it is, you son of a bitch," I spat, with animal Derek winning control of my emotions. "Who did you think would answer?"

"Listen, man, I'm really sorry. Really, I am. She came onto me…I couldn't control myself. I never wanted to hurt you."

It sounded so much like the litany Addison had let off that first night.

"Don't you dare play the 'she came onto me card'," I hissed. "Mark, we both know you're a man whore – I guess it's my fault, I knew what a traitorous bastard you could be. But really, do you have no shame?"

"Derek, you have to hear me out. She called me…are you really out in Seattle?"

I pressed the end button with much more force than was required. I began pacing the men's room, trying to tire out animal Derek so that rational Derek might come back, so that I might be able to think straight.

I refused to believe that Addison had made an actual effort to cheat, to call Mark out to our house. It was so much easier to believe that he took advantage of her, that she had succumbed in the heat of the moment.

_Either way_, I thought, _the marriage is over. It was over when you thought he started it. It doesn't matter now_.

I wanted a new life. I was in a bar. The night was young. Maybe I could find someone to distract me from my sorrow and rage. Maybe for once, I could go looking for women to take me away from the pain. It seemed to work for Mark, after all.

I finally calmed down enough to go back out to the bar, with civilized people. I checked the clock on the Blackberry – I had been in the bar for two hours. Animal Derek knew no time – but the good news was that this was prime time for lonely women to wander into the bar for a drink. It was time to forget Addison and find someone who I could love, who would cherish who I was and hold my attention.

After an hour of failing to really become interested in anyone in the bar, I fell back to my table in the back of the bar. I had almost given up and was ready to drive home when a slight woman rattled the bells as she opened the door to the bar. She was petite, thirty-something and wearing a sleek black dress that looked as if it was designed with her in mind. On the outside, she didn't really differ much from the other girls I'd been pursuing, but there was something to her I was drawn to – I couldn't look away. She had a ethereal beauty to her, as if she might disappear at a moment's notice. It was as if she wasn't meant for this world, but yet there she was. The attraction was there. I had to make a move, and let her know I was there. With any luck, she'd see something worthwhile in me.

I wasn't sure what my feelings for this woman meant, but I was sure of one thing – I'd never felt this way towards Addison, even in the beginning. Her body had caught my eye, and she noticed my charm. Things progressed quickly, and then eventually burnt out. This girl, on the other hand, fascinated me, and I felt that any attention I got from her would have to be earned. I sat there, smiling, drunk on her presence.

She walked in and took a seat at the peanut-riddled bar, right in front of Joe, the friendly bartender. She ordered something, in a very quiet voice. I strained to hear over the ambient noise of the bar, hanging onto every word.

"Straight tequila?" Joe confirmed. "Really? You will be sorry in the morning," he said, pouring the liquor into a shot glass.

Her head tilted ever so slightly back, she was looking up at him.

"I'm always sorry in the morning," she said, again in a low voice. "But tomorrow I start my first day of work, so keep 'em coming."

I grinned, and got up from my seat, knowing I had to talk to this girl. Joe saw me heading over, and quietly greeted me. The girl raised her shot glass and threw it down. This was not her first tequila shot.

"Double scotch, single malt please," I said, echoing her low tones. I sat in the seat to her right, not bothering to ask whether or not it was taken. I was smitten, and I would not take no for an answer.

As Joe poured my scotch, I cleared my throat and looked at her for the first time up close. Everything I saw in her from a distance was still there.

"So, is this a good place to hang out?" I asked, cringing internally as I did. It had been so long since I tried to pick up a girl in a bar and I was obviously out of practice. I only hoped that I could charm her into ignoring that slip-up. I wanted her so badly to notice me.

She glanced at me, and we made eye contact for the first time. I smiled as she cleared her throat and looked away. I think she liked what she saw, but undoubtedly she had dealt with her fair share of attractive men. Luckily, I had always had a healthy sense of self-esteem; I'd prove to her that I was worthy of her attention.

Our eyes met again.

"I wouldn't know," she said, and I savored the fact that for the first time, she was addressing me. Her eyes widened as she talked. "I've never been here before."

"Oh, you know what?" I said, as she looked away yet again. "I haven't either. First time here. I'm new in town." I got up, and turned to face her on the bar stool. "Never been to Seattle before, but I have a job, so…" I trailed off, inviting her to ask what I did. I figured that a neurosurgeon was usually impressive enough for women to get the hint that I was an asset.

She went back to her tequila, not looking at me. My face fell a bit - the way she'd been glancing and looking away had felt so promising. But I was resolved – I _needed_ this girl to notice me. She was already stuck in my mind.

I sighed. "You're ignoring me." Maybe I could make her just uncomfortable enough to reengage her. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Joe's head turn slightly towards the woman, watching her protectively.

It worked enough. She turned towards me again, and this time looked me in the eyes and held the contact. "I'm trying to."

"You shouldn't ignore me." There was the bait, maybe now she would give me the time of day.

"Why not?" she asked. Her voice peaked a little, no longer so low it was almost a whisper. I had finally piqued her curiosity.

"Because I'm someone you need to get to know to love." I laid my cards out, and now it was up to her to decide what to do with them.

She looked at me again, and I grinned. "Really?" she asked.

"Oh yes."

She nodded, thinking this over. "So if I know you, I'll love you." She smiled just a bit, and I reveled in the glory of it. I had gotten this woman holding my thoughts captive to smile.

I couldn't think of anything else better to say. "Oh yes."

She was still holding the contact. "You really like yourself, huh?"

I shook my head just a bit. "Just hiding my pain." We both laughed a little; obviously she had no idea that my innocent joke was pretty close to the truth. "So what's your story?" I took a sip of my scotch.

She looked at me for a moment, and then said, "I don't have a story. I'm just a girl in a bar."

I held my scotch glass up. "I'm just a guy in a bar." I took another sip. Her eyes didn't leave mine this time.

----

My ploy had worked. We made small talk for the rest of the evening – and true to his word, Joe kept the tequila and scotch coming. A couple of hours later, we were both pretty soused.

For the life of me, I could not remember how I ended up following her little domestic Jeep to her house. She was so drunk she didn't even make fun of my War Machine; I was so drunk I didn't think that I couldn't drive.

I do remember the sex being great. Was it because I was with the woman whose very presence seemed to be inviting me in, even if her words and actions tried to keep me out? Was it because I hadn't had sex since before Addison cheated on me? Maybe a little bit of both.

The next thing I remember was lying on the hard wood of her living room floor. She stole the blanket covering my naked body to cover herself and dropped a pillow on my ass to cover me up – as if she hadn't seen me naked already. I had a fuzzy memory of her telling me that no one else lived in the house with her.

I rolled over and fingered her black lacy bra. I held it over my head and she took it from my grasp. "This is…uh…" I had begun to say something but completely lost track of what it was.

"Humiliating on so many levels," she completed for me. Ouch. And here I thought it was a night to remember. "You have to go."

I sat up as she snuck off around the couch. "Why don't you just come back down here and we'll pick up where we left off?" She dropped my pants onto the floor beside me.

"No, seriously, you have to go. I'm late, which isn't what you want to be on your first day of work, so…" she trailed off, not knowing how to finish.

I put on my boxers and stood up. "So, uh…you actually live here?" It was a very nice, older house, and I was surprised someone so young could afford to be living there with no roommates.

"No," she said, brushing her hair from her face.

"Oh," I said indulgently. Maybe she had a friend out of town she was house-sitting for. It was too bad – I wouldn't have minded coming back here again.

"Yes," she amended. "Kind of."

"Oh." This time I was confused. How do you "kind of" live somewhere? Or maybe she wanted me to think she didn't live here so I couldn't track her down. I was disappointed – how was I going to see this girl again if she was so eager to kick me out? "It's nice. A little dusty. Odd, but it's nice." I nodded as she stared at me. Finally, I wondered out loud. "So how do you 'kind of' live here?"

"I moved two weeks ago from Boston; it was my mother's house and I'm selling it."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, cursing myself in my head for my lack of vocabulary in the morning. I fixed the belt to my pants.

"For what?" she asked. Wasn't it obvious?

"You said 'was'," I pointed out.

"Oh," she said, shaking her hand vigorously, as if she could physically clear away the confusion. "My mother's not dead, she just..she's – you know what? We don't have to do the thing."

Thing? "Oh, we can do anything you want." I admired this girl way too much for her to censor herself around me.

"No the thing – exchange the details, pretend we care," she said. I grinned. It was just like in the bar the previous evening – she was trying to wall herself off from me. "I'm going to go upstairs and take a shower, and when I get down here, you won't be here, so…um…" She was clearly struggling with something. "Um…"

I waited, and then realized what she was waiting for. "Derek." My voice fell flat. I was nothing but a one night stand to her, and in her eyes there was no future here. She just wanted to move on with her life as quickly as possible. I tried to hide how crushed I felt.

"Derek, right, Meredith." I held out my hand, and she shook it while still holding the blanket around her body.

"Meredith," I repeated. The word flowed out of my mouth so easily, as if I had been born to speak it.

"Yeah," she said, grinning. Maybe there was hope here after all. I began to button up my good red shirt.

"Nice meeting you," I smiled widely and walked up close. I now had a clue. She was Meredith. But she slunk away and up the stairs.

"Bye, Derek," she said, her voice dripping with embarrassment.

I finished the buttons on the shirt and gathered up the rest of my belongings, and came out the door we stumbled through, making out, on our way in last night. I took one look at the house as I wandered towards the beast of a car I drove, taking note of its appearance. It was part of what seemed to be doomed to remain a wonderful memory. I wondered if I'd ever see the girl who had pulled me so strongly again. I hoped fervently that I would.

_McIntern: Yes, they've finally met! Here's my take on the story so far: Derek does not believe in love at first sight, mainly because I don't and I think it would be difficult to adequately depict that if I didn't at least have some experience of what that felt like. But I do think he believes in chemistry – and that's what attracts him to Meredith for the first time. At this point, though, he's not very optimistic. But he does know that even at the height of his relationship with Addison, he did not have the depth of feelings he has for Meredith. So, right from the get go, he knows something is different._

_I'm hoping to turn out chapters more quickly now, since more of the story has played out for me and I basically just fill in Derek's thoughts and experiences aside from Meredith. That may sound boring to some of you, but especially as the story progresses, I think Derek's side of the story should be just as interesting as when we saw it from Meredith's side for the first time. So, hopefully I can still hold your interest as we progress farther into the love story we know so well._


	5. Chapter 5: I've Just Seen a Face

_McIntern: I just want to tell all my readers that I love you guys! Traffic on the story has just been incredible! And an extra special thank you for those of you who wrote reviews encouraging me to tell my own story of Derek and Meredith. So far, of course, we're still on track with the series. And hopefully you'll be excited to know that the sheer text of this chapter is double the length of the longest previous chapter, and that word count included the title and author's notes as well. Basically, this chapter is 1.1 A Hard Day's Night from Derek's point of view. Before you panic, I won't be dedicating a chapter to each episode – that would take far too long. But the first day is a major milestone in their relationship so I feel it's only fair to dedicate a chapter to it. Most other events will be consolidated, and anything Derek isn't present for will be omitted. But now I am just talking too much. So, how about I just let you read the darn thing? Oh, and who is TOTALLY PSYCHED about the end of the hiatus Thursday night? It will be the first time this season I get to see Grey's when it actually airs – my roommate commandeers the TV to watch The Office. I can't exactly argue because a) I love The Office, too and b) it's her TV. Blink looks like it's going to be a tremendous episode, though I hope it isn't lacking in the MerDer department like the last few. P.S. I don't own the song, either.  
_

**Chapter 5 – I've Just Seen a Face**

_I've just seen a face, I can't forget the time or place where we just met._

_She's just the girl for me, and I want all the world to see we've met._

_Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm mmm mmm._

_Fallin', yes I am fallin', and she keeps callin' me back again._

_I've Just Seen a Face - The Beatles  
_

As I got in the Jeep, I noticed that the neighborhood looked familiar. It was, in fact, Queen Anne's Hill, the affluent neighborhood that Richard and the realtor had both turned me onto.

Amazingly, I managed to figure out my bearings. It was six thirty – as an attending, I had the privilege to show up whenever I had surgeries scheduled, but for the first day I decided it would be wise to head in somewhat early. I could shower and eat breakfast at the coffee cart, and if I wore scrubs under my lab coat, no one would have to know I came in with the same clothes I had on yesterday. This neighborhood was much closer to the hospital than the trailer was, anyway – with the ferry ride, it was a good forty minutes one way. I drove off in the direction of Seattle Grace, with Meredith never too far from my mind.

I had met a girl – and it wasn't like anything I'd ever felt before. This was the kind of meeting songs were written about, and it was incredible. When I met Addison, I had always dismissed those sappy love songs about meeting a girl and knowing she would be the one you'd die kissing. It had to have been just a flight of fantasy. That girl changed everything I thought I knew for the last thirty eight years. My world was turned upside down – you could have told me the sky was green and I would have believed you. Nothing I had held to be certain was true anymore. It was like seeing the world through new eyes.

But she didn't hold the same interest in me. I might have been able to keep her engaged last night, but this morning, without the blithe veil of tequila, reality had struck and she thought our night was a mistake. Why would I be allowed to experience such a rush of emotion towards a girl who wanted to pretend our meeting never happened?

I was raised Catholic, but I gave up my beliefs long ago. 'Abandoned' may be a more apt term. You can't be a doctor and watch good people suffer terminal disease, and believe somehow God's plans for them were greater. My sister Pamela confessed to the same thing. But driving to Grace, I prayed. _Please God_, I begged, abandoning all of my pride. _You led her into my life. Lead me back to her._

Somehow, though I was paying more attention to my memories than the road, I managed to wind up in the Seattle Grace parking lot. Richard had told me there were spaces reserved for department heads – and sure enough, 4th spot in there was a cement parking stop with NEURO sprayed on with stencils. Some idle part of my brain calculated that NEUROSURGERY would have taken up too much room.

I maneuvered the tank into the spot, and then sat in the driver's seat for a moment to collect myself. Last night notwithstanding, I was a world class neurosurgeon. And this was my first day of work. At one of the nation's leading hospitals, home to one of the country's top surgical programs, where I would one day become Chief of Surgery. And if I was to be that surgeon, I had to be professional. That meant that any thoughts about Meredith had to be stowed away, at least until my shift ended. It was going to be a long one – I was new, and Richard put me on call. He feared resentment from the other neurosurgical attendings – while he had appointed one the interim head, he knew that signing a free agent from out of town would not be welcomed warmly from his veteran players. So he was putting me through my paces, like a racehorse being shown to a choosy owner. Normally, I would've put my foot down. But it was necessary to not only stay in Richard's good graces, but to also gain the respect of my neuro team. And if I was going to be put through my paces, I was going to do it right.

It was a busy day at Seattle Grace. The new surgical interns were starting their first shift. With any fresh batch of interns, mistakes were expected to be made, but those mistakes had to be wiped up by the residents, which meant in turn that it would sap time out of an attending's day. We were also expected to teach them in the process. I only hoped that Richard was right, and that these interns were the best and brightest. Not that it meant much; interns were too fresh across the board. They think they've paid their dues and they've earned the right to cut, and they're too green to know that the work has only just begun. These interns could even be worse – they had to know they were the best, and God knows that they would be ready to let everyone know about it.

As soon as I changed into my fresh new lab coat and the navy blue trademark scrubs of a Seattle Grace surgical attending, my pager started going off like crazy. It was a good thing I had taken the time to orient myself with the different parts of the surgical floor of the hospital, because I was being paged to every corner of it. For the rest of the morning, I was kept busy with consults for 4 head traumas, 2 strokes, and a spinal cord tumor. I had planned to meet with my new staff to introduce myself, but I had no time.

Finally, I found time for a quick lunch. The hospital cafeteria served the quality of food I expected, but I was still disappointed; it was a far cry from the New York deli where I usually lunched. I grabbed a hot turkey sandwich – the most appealing of the offerings – and retreated to my office.

Normally, I would have eaten with colleagues, but I hadn't had the chance to meet mine. I had seen a few of the residents and interns, of course, but I had only caught glances of the other attendings, and half of them weren't in surgery anyways. It reminded me of the first days of high school.

Being assertive and self-confident is part of the game when you're a neurosurgeon, but I'd had to learn them. Being raised by a working mother in a five-child household does not exactly leave room for luxuries, and having four sisters doesn't adequately prepare one for interpreting the social behavior of other teenage males. My affinity for the saxophone didn't help matters. Needless to say, I was not the popular jock everyone imagines me to be in high school. I was the Afro'd, pimply, socially awkward band geek; not that I was going to share that with anyone in Seattle.

But I was used to eating alone. So I ate my sandwich and mashed potatoes in the solitude of my office. The funny thing about quiet is that all the thoughts you pushed away while you were busy tend to slowly creep back to the forefront. And so I ate, thinking of Meredith, pretending I wasn't eating hospital turkey in an office but veal marsala at Camparos on our first date. I imagined her wearing the same dress, gazing at me with her enchanting blue eyes, looking away every so often to try and hide her interest. When I finished, I shook the thought from its prominent place. _You need to start acting your rank_, a voice in my head called. _And forget about her – she made it pretty clear of what she thought about a future with you._

I finished up my lunch and walked out of my office towards the catwalk over the lobby. I thought about maybe going to see Richard, but thought better of it. Instead, I propped my arms on the railing and stared through the large windows out to the sky. It was a surprisingly nice day for Seattle – overcast but with no rain. Maybe it would bode well for my first day.

Suddenly, two men walked up to me from the right.

"Are you Dr. Derek Shepherd?" an older man asked. To his right, there was a black man with glasses. Both wore navy scrubs and lab coats.

"Yes, I am," I said, shaking each one's hand.

"I'm Andrei Kremchek, and this is David Adams. We're both neurosurgical attendings," Kremchek explained, shaking my hand vigorously.

"It's truly a pleasure to meet you," Adams said, a bit more reserved than Kremchek. "You're a legend."

I chuckled. "I doubt you can attain legend status working in a private practice. But thank you. I've been meaning to meet all of you, but I keep getting paged."

"I don't know what it is today – there seem to be pages for neuro consults left and right." Kremchek shook his head. "There aren't many more of us – other than Nelson, we have two new ones. I can't remember their names for the life of me." He frowned.

"Well, Dr. Shepherd, if you're not too busy," Adams said tentatively, "I'd like your opinion on my Chiari malformation patient. He needs surgery, but I'm not sure whether he's a candidate for decompression alternative surgery."

I nodded as Adams handed me the chart and I pored over the patient history.

"Well, looks from the symptoms like he's a type II. And he's three – if he's made it this far, he's most likely not very high risk. Run it by the parents, of course, but I see no reason why you couldn't attempt the detethering. Make sure you explain to them that although it is less invasive, it's still risky. But you're right, he could be a candidate." I smiled. This was what I was missing from private practice. My colleague was going to save a toddler from a years of headaches, vomiting, paralysis, and possibly death, and give him a lifetime of normalcy.

I double-checked the patients' chart while Adams and Kremchek joked about something, when suddenly something caught in the corner of my eye. There was a girl, probably an intern, lurking outside the staff door to the surgical wing. She was staring at me.

At first, I took no notice – I was getting that a lot around here. Apparently my reputation preceded me. But something was familiar about that face…

It was Meredith. The girl I'd told myself I couldn't have was wearing the surgical scrubs of a Seattle Grace resident and staring at me.

As soon as we made eye contact, she wheeled around on her heel and walked right back through the door she had exited. I couldn't let her walk out of my life a second time.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," I said, handing the chart back to Dr. Adams and pressing the page button on my pager. I pretended to check it. "Well, let me know if you have any questions or concerns, and if you see any of the other neuro attendings, have them stop by my office."

I dashed through the door she'd just left, and hurried down the hallway after her. There she was, walking down the hallway. I drew level with her arm and grabbed it gently but firmly. "Meredith, can I talk to you for a second?"

"Actually I was…" she began. I escorted her to the stairwell, checking over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching.

My heart leapt. She was here, at the hospital where I worked. She worked here, too. I had another chance with this woman who had such a hold on me. It had to be fate that brought her back to me.

She peered around the landing to see if there was anyone there to overhear our conversation. "Dr. Shepherd…"

"Dr. Shepherd?" My chest deflated. She looked up at me, as if challenging me to mention our rendezvous. "This morning it was Derek. Now it's Dr. Shepherd." I leaned against the railing.

"Dr. Shepherd, we should pretend it never happened," she said in a businesslike tone.

"What never happened? You sleeping with me last night? Or you throwing me out this morning? Because both are fond memories I'd like to hold onto." I grinned at her. I might as well be in Emerald City again. She didn't realize it yet, but we were supposed to be a part of each other's life. This proved it.

"No," she insisted, shaking her head fervently. "There will be no memories. I'm not the girl in the bar anymore, and you're not the guy. This can't exist. You get that, right?"

I nodded, and decided to have a bit of fun with her. "You took advantage of me and now you want to forget about it?"

"I did not take-"

"- I was drunk, vulnerable, and good looking and you took advantage of me."

She smiled despite herself. "Okay, I was the one who was drunk, and you are _not_ that good looking."

"Well, maybe not today. But last night? Last night I was very good looking. I had my red shirt, my good looking shirt, and you took advantage," I said walking to the other side of her.

She turned to face me. "I did not take ad-"

"You want to take advantage again?" I asked, staring into the depths of her beautiful blue eyes, and inhaling a floral scent I hadn't noticed last night but now seemed to float in the air around her. "Say, Friday night?"

And for a moment, we looked into each other's eyes and she didn't try to rebuff me. A curious look flashed over her face, but in a second it was gone. "No." After another split second, she seemed to reconsider her answer. "You're an attending. And I'm your intern."

I couldn't help myself. After spending the last few hours trying to stave off the thought of her, I needed to refresh my memory. My eyes wandered downward. She caught me.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?" I whined, irritated that she broke my concentration.

"Like you've seen me naked," she said, her words accompanied by an edge. I smiled and wondered. _If it wasn't meant to be, why can she read my thoughts_?

"Dr. Shepherd! This is inappropriate." I frowned. "Did that ever occur to you?" She walked away, and let the door close on its own. I sighed. She had a point. An intern having a relationship with an attending was akin to sleeping with a professor in college – it was frowned upon and assumed to be a ploy aimed to get ahead in the workplace. Not that I would let that stop me. We had met before we knew we worked together. And the feelings I had for her were much deeper than needing someone to stroke my ego.

Much later, as I lay on an on-call room bunk, Meredith was not the only thing on my mind. One of my patients, 15-year-old teen beauty queen Katie Bryce, was having grand mal seizures with no apparent cause. Her labs and scans were clear; there was something we were missing, but where exactly to look was anybody's guess. I had been over her chart enough times that I had it committed to memory, but I still had nothing. As horrible as it sounded, I was waiting for another symptom to develop to point me in the right direction.

With nothing particularly new developing on the Katie Bryce front, my thoughts drifted back to Meredith. While last night she had looked away from me several times, this afternoon she had maintained eye contact with me for a remarkable length. She had clearly been equally surprised that our paths crossed yet again. And her hesitation in declining my dinner invitation led me to assume she might have actually said yes – if we didn't work together.

I had to admit, it was a formidable obstacle. I was an attending – a department head, no less – and one of her highest-ranked superiors short of Richard. People would think she was seducing me in order to get in on better cases and scrub in on more surgeries. People would think I was taking advantage of a pretty young intern as part of a midlife crisis. Admittedly, while no one aside from Richard at Seattle Grace knew of my separation from Addison, dating a woman who had to be a good 7 or 8 years younger than me screamed of a midlife crisis. And if things ended badly between us, it would be well within my power to make her life hell. There was a reason doctors didn't engage in these sorts of relationships – it was very hard to keep the personal and professional relationships separate.

But the onlookers would be wrong. Maybe she had seduced me – but it was through no fault of her own. Her very existence seduced me; she really didn't even have to try. We had met before we knew we worked together – and that had to count for something, right? But the naysayers would just nod their heads indulgently – of course you did. The new neuro attending from New York has enough integrity not to date the interns. That never happens.

_How do __**you**__ know you're not having a midlife crisis?_ the self-doubting voice in my head said. _Maybe she's just your rebound._

The voice had merit. It had only been about 3 weeks since I'd caught my wife cheating. The fact remained that the feelings I had for Meredith were so much more meaningful than anything I'd felt for Addison. Being around Meredith just seemed _easy_. Well, except for the "trying to win her over" part, which was proving to be quite difficult.

As I pondered the meaning of my life, my pager went off. Normally, if my pager went off at 5:30 in the morning, I would have been upset, but at this point I was almost welcoming a distraction. That is, until I read the message.

_3604 – 911_. 3604 was Katie Bryce.

911 could only mean one thing.

I quickly rolled off the bed and threw open the door to the on-call room. Katie's room was on the exact opposite side of the surgical wing. It was going to take me a fair amount of time before I could get there.

I tried to remember who the intern was on Katie's case. Dr. Bailey, a promising senior resident, was the resident on the case, and earlier all of her interns were working on Katie, but as her caseload piled up, she had assigned only one of them to the patient.

_Grey_, I recalled from reading the chart many times. _Dr. Grey is the intern assigned to Katie Bryce_.

The name sounded familiar but I wasn't sure why.

I ran through the halls, trying to dodge as many bystanders as possible. But it wasn't quick enough for me. It was a damn 911!

Finally, I reached 3604. I ran in to see none other than Meredith…Grey. And the crash cart. And a team of nurses.

"What the hell happened?"

Meredith looked at me, her breathing labored due to the adrenaline that comes with a code. "She had a seizure, and –"

"A seizure?" Another?

"- her heart stopped."

I tried to keep the accusing edge out of my voice, but it only worked a little. "You were supposed to be monitoring her." I began listening to Katie's chest sounds.

She backed away. "I checked on her and she –"

I waved her away. "I got her, just – just go."

I could see her backing away, and I felt bad for chastising her, but it was my job. She was supposed to be keeping an eye on the patient, especially when the situation was as serious as Katie's.

I heard a normal heart rhythm, though it was slightly elevated. _Typical for someone who's just suffered a seizure. _The stakes had just been raised, but there were no new clues. Left untreated, Katie would keep seizing and most likely keep coding, and her heart could only be shocked back so many times.

"Somebody get me her – give me her chart, please."

I looked for Dr. Bailey but she wasn't in the room. Suddenly, the short woman came bursting through the door. She looked like she'd just come from surgery.

"I apologize, Dr. Shepherd," she said, an annoyed edge to her tone. "Apparently, some of my interns don't understand that if their patient is dying, I would like to be informed."

I finished the notes to her chart, and handed them off to her. "I need you to get her into CT again and see if anything's changed." _Because otherwise I've got nothing_.

"Yes, sir," Bailey said, reading the notes to the chart. I headed back to the on-call room. Until the new tests were back in, I still had nothing to go on as far as diagnosing Katie.

---

An hour later, I got a look at Katie's CT scan. Naturally, it was as clean as the first. I was no closer to finding an explanation for the girl's symptoms, and time was running out.

I stared at the screen, but nothing jumped out at me. The phone rang in the technician's booth.

He turned to me, phone held to his ear. "Katie's parents are in the lobby."

I met Mr. and Mrs. Bryce in the hospital lobby. They looked worried, as expected, at the news that their daughter went into cardiac arrest. Mrs. Bryce ran up to me.

"Where is she? Is she alive? What happened?"

"She's being brought back to her room from a CT scan. You can see her in just a few minutes. Mr. and Mrs. Bryce, Katie suffered another seizure during which her heart stopped. We managed to shock her back into normal rhythm, but a seizure disorder wouldn't typically cause cardiac arrest. It's a possibility that there's a different condition causing the seizures. We've run more tests but they haven't showed us anything so far."

"Wait," Katie's father interjected. "You said it was a seizure disorder. Now you're saying it isn't?"

"I'm saying that I don't know."

"Well, what do you think it could be?" Katie's mother asked quietly. She seemed to be more calm, now that she knew her daughter was alive.

"I don't know." I felt like an idiot, but it was true.

"Well, when will you know?" Mr. Bryce asked, his voice becoming more indignant.

"I don't…have an answer for you." I wished I had a better idea of what to tell them. "For right now, Katie is stable, and –"

Mr. Bryce shook his head in disgust. "Wait one damn minute. We came here because this hospital is supposed to be the best in Washington." He paused and gritted his teeth. "That's my kid in there. My kid. And you have the audacity to stand there and say 'I don't know'?"

"Mr. Bryce-"

"No. I want someone else. A doctor who knows what they're doing. You get me someone else, someone better than you."

I bit back the words I wanted to say. _There is no one better than me._ It wouldn't help anyone, it would just make the Bryces feel even more helpless. Mrs. Bryce leaned over to try to calm her husband down.

"Mr. Bryce, I assure you that I am working hard on Katie's case."

"No, you're not. If you were, you'd be able to give me some answers." The Bryces walked off towards 3604 to see their daughter.

Though I knew that I was doing everything I could to diagnose Katie, it didn't feel like enough, especially to her parents. It's hard for patients and their families, who come here to seek the expertise of a surgeon, to hear that the doctor doesn't know what's wrong with them. It's hard for them to listen to a supposed expert admitting that years of medical training are not enough to be able to save everybody. As if that's not bad enough, it's hard for the doctors, too. Patients come in, trusting that we can fix them. Usually we can, but sometimes the problem just evades us, hiding in places we'd never look. Sometimes it's in plain sight, but too small to notice.

Katie Bryce was only fifteen. She had her whole life in front of her. Unless I could somehow pull off a miracle, she was going to die in this hospital, her crowning achievement being almost winning a teen beauty pageant.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that while I had years of medical training, there were at least 20 other people in the hospital whose med school classes in diagnostics were much fresher in their minds than mine were. With any luck, one of them could come up with a cause for Katie's seizures.

I went to the nurses' station. "Page every surgical intern to the conference room now."

---

A half an hour later, I walked into the conference room with Dr. Bailey, filled with interns who looked every bit like they were in the second half of a marathon shift.

"Well, good morning. I'm going to do something pretty rare for a surgeon; I'm going to ask interns for help." I paced around the room. "I've got this kid – Katie Bryce. Right now, she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to our meds. Her labs are clean, scans are pure, but she's having seizures – grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's a ticking clock. She's going to die if I don't make a diagnosis, which is where you come in. I can't do it alone; I need your extra eyes, extra minds. I need you to play detective. I need you to find out why Katie is having seizures."

I spotted Richard outside of the doorway.

"I know you're tired, you're busy, you've got more work than you can possibly handle. I understand, so I'm going to give you an incentive. Whoever finds the answer rides with me. If Katie needs surgery, you get to do what no interns get to do – scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure. Dr. Bailey's going to hand you Katie's chart. The clock is ticking fast, people. If we're going to save Katie's life, we have to do it soon."

As the interns scrambled to get a copy of the chart, I walked out. Richard nodded to me; though it wasn't exactly the intention of the exercise, I was providing a great learning opportunity for the interns, the kind expected from a teaching facility of Grace's rank. If one of them managed to solve the case, it was a win-win for both of us.

I hoped, for Katie's sake, that I got shown up by an intern.

---

After a consult on a slipped disc, I waited to get on the elevator to go to my office and fill out some paperwork, and hopefully meet with my other attendings. So far, I'd met Adams, Kremchek, and Nelson, but the other two remained a mystery. As the doors opened, I heard running footsteps.

"Oh, Dr. Shepherd! Just one moment."

I got on the elevator and turned around to be faced by Meredith and another of Bailey's interns, Cristina Yang.

As the doors closed, Yang stuck her arm between them. "Um, Katie competes in beauty pageants."

"I know that, but we have to save her life anyway." Rumor had it around the nurses' station that Katie Bryce, when she wasn't seizing, was a high-maintenance little witch of a girl.

"She has no headaches, uh, no neck pain and her CT is clean. Um, there's no medical proof of an aneurysm –"

"Right," I prompted. I'd been over all of this, and I really wanted to get to my office.

"But what if she has an aneurysm anyway?"

"There are no indicators."

"But she twisted her ankle, a few weeks ago when she was practicing for the pageant –"

I tried to stifle my annoyance. "Look, I appreciate you trying to help, but –"

"She fell," Meredith said as the doors began to close again. I could sense the irritation of the other doctors around me, and looked around. "When she twisted her ankle, she fell."

"It was no big deal, not even a bump on the head, you know," Yang continued. "She got right back up, iced her ankle, and everything was fine. It was a fall so minor her doctor didn't even think to mention it when I was taking her history, but she did – she did fall."

I had had enough. "Do you know the chances that a minor fall could burst an aneurysm?" The doors began to close for a final time. "One in a million – literally!"

But as I thought about it, it could possibly explain Katie's symptoms, and all of the likely causes had been exhausted. It was worth a shot to just test for it, even if it was just to say we had ruled out something else. I pressed the doors open button. A nurse behind me groaned.

The doors opened, and Meredith and Cristina turned around.

"Let's go."

"Where?" Cristina asked. Meredith simply began to follow.

"To find out if Katie's one in a million."

---

Meredith, Yang and I crowded around the computer screen in the CT. It was Katie's third scan in 24 hours – her second in two. I wasn't hopeful that the angiogram would find anything, but anything was better than having to face the Bryces with no new information.

Katie's brain filled the screen. And sure enough, in the upper left…

"I'll be damned."

The technician indicated the shadow to the interns. "There it is."

I leaned in to get a better look. "It's minute but it's there. It's a subarachnoid hemorrhage. She's bleeding into her brain."

It was so small the standard CT wouldn't have picked it up yet. I smiled, and savored the fact that we could save Katie. While clipping an aneurysm was certainly a complicated procedure, it was one I had performed hundreds of times. Barring unforeseen complications, she'd be able to return to a normal life; though rhythmic gymnastics probably couldn't be included anymore.

We walked back towards the lobby.

"She could have gone throughout her entire life without it ever being a problem. One tap in the right spot…" I snapped my fingers.

"It exploded," Yang supplied.

"Exactly. Now I can fix it. You two did great work," I put a hand on each of them. "I'd love to stay and kiss your asses, but I've gotta tell Katie's parents she's having surgery." I turned to the nurse at the station. "Katie Bryce's chart, please."

"Here you go." She handed it to me and I made some more notes, as well as double-checking her medical history.

"Uh, oh, and Dr. Shepherd?" Cristina stepped forward. "Y-you said that you'd pick someone to scrub in if we helped?"

"Oh, yes. Right," I remembered my promise. "Um, I'm sorry I can't take you both. It's going to be a full house." I looked to Meredith. Cristina had done the talking, but I had little doubt it was Meredith's diagnosis.

"Meredith, I'll see you in the O.R."

I signed the chart, as her attending physician, thanked the nurse, and went to schedule Katie's surgery. With her emergent condition, it wouldn't take more than an hour or two to secure an operating room.

---

It took an unbelievable twelve hours for an operating room to clear up – I wondered if Seattle Grace was always so swamped. So it was 11:00 before Katie's prep work was done, and I was in the middle of shaving her head for the craniotomy when Meredith walked in. I smelled her before I saw her. The floral scent was comforting.

She strolled in, surveying my job with her arms folded, guarding against any advances I might make. I kept conversation light.

"I promised I'd make her look cool," I offered. "Apparently being a bald beauty queen is the worst thing that happened in the history of the world." I smiled and turned the clippers off.

"Did you choose me for the surgery because I slept with you?" she said in her quiet voice. Though she had to be tired after working 40 hours straight, it seemed she was always soft-spoken – unless she was pissed off.

"Yes." I said frankly, looking at her. She tensed up more, holding her glare.

"I'm kidding." She obviously couldn't take a joke. Surely she didn't think I'd honestly be so unprofessional?

"I'm not going to scrub in for surgery. You should ask Cristina, she really wants it." Her beautiful eyes were puffy; not from crying, but she looked worn. Not just physically, but emotionally, too. I wondered if it was because of me.

I put my hands on my knees. "You're Katie's doctor. And on your first day, with very little training, you helped save her life. You earned the right to follow her case through to the finish. You –". I shook my head. I truly did pick her because I knew she was the one the patient had confided in. There was no way Cristina would have known about Katie's fall without Meredith cluing her in. Rumor had it that Meredith was the daughter of the illustrious general surgeon Ellis Grey; if that was true, she definitely had the chops to solve the case herself. She deserved the shot – but was her relationship with me causing her to doubt that? Maybe I had wreaked more havoc on her life than I'd anticipated.

I brought my voice down to a whisper. "You shouldn't let the fact that we had sex get in the way of you taking your shot."

She looked away, as if she hadn't considered that side. She showed a lot of promise, but I imagined living in the shadow of a surgeon like Ellis Grey left a lot of room for self-doubt.

Finally, at 12:00, more than twelve hours since Katie's diagnosis, she was anesthetized and I was scrubbing in. Meredith was still nowhere to be found. I worried not only that my advances were already screwing up her career, but that if she didn't show I would have to punish her as I would any other intern. And it would all be my fault.

Luckily, as I entered the O.R., she emerged from the scrub room. Though she couldn't see my mouth under the surgical mask, I smiled. I turned towards the patient.

"All right, everybody," I said, in a mantra I repeated before every surgery for good luck. I had borrowed it from a mentor of mine during my neurosurgical fellowship. "It's a beautiful night to save lives. Let's have some fun."

It took a long time to expose the aneurysm, but aside from a minor heart rate scare, the surgery was textbook. All that was left to be done was clip the aneurysm, replace the vessel, replace the skull flap, and close her up. The clip was loaded into the instrument so that I could use the scope to place it with utmost accuracy. The scope had two viewfinders.

I looked to Meredith, and jerked my head to get her to come over. She walked up ambivalently and put her eyes to the viewfinder. I placed the clip securely around the stem of the aneurysm – it went beautifully. I mopped up the bleeding with some surgical gauze, and began to move the blood vessel to its proper place.

The surgery was long, close to 6 hours, but it went off without a hitch. Soon enough, I was scrubbing out, and Katie was being wheeled to recovery. If all went well, she'd be awake in an hour and could be home in a week or so.

I leaned against the nurses' station to record the notes regarding the surgery on Katie's chart. After a few moments, I heard the familiar voice from my left.

"That was amazing."

I looked at her and smiled. Meredith had taken her shot – she hadn't let me get in the way of her learning. I sighed to myself. She was radiating excitement, and it made her even more irresistible.

"You practice on cadavers, you observe, and you think you know what you're gonna feel like standing over that table, but…"

Another smile crept over my lips, and I looked at her to continue.

"That was such a high!" her voice exclaimed, though it was still as quiet as ever.

I took a deep breath. I'd heard that from a lot of surgeons. It was a quality present in a lot of the greats.

"I don't know why anybody does drugs."

Yet another smile found its way to my face. "Yeah," I said absently. She couldn't know that seeing her excitement directed towards me, even if it wasn't quite the way I wanted it, took my breath away. _Being with you is my high_, I wanted to tell her. _I know the feeling_.

She smiled – the first true smile I'd seen from her. "Yeah," she responded in kind. It might have been my imagination…but I thought she had melted under my gaze, just a bit.

I shook my head, not wanting to leave but knowing I had to. I didn't want to leave the glow of her happiness. "I should go do this."

She looked to me and nodded. "You should." The words sounded harsher than she'd probably intended them. Everything that made me leave this moment of contentment seemed harsh.

I nodded once to her. "I'll see you around." I walked off towards the lobby to tell Katie's parents that their daughter was going to not only live, but be able to resume most of her normal activities.

"See ya around," she repeated at my retreating form. "See ya," she amended. I smiled widely. I couldn't be sure, but I thought I had a bit of a hold on her – apart from being her attending. Maybe she was beginning to let down her guard.

I had one more surgery scheduled for the day, so at 12:30 in the afternoon I climbed back into my Desert Storm land cruiser to drive back to my trailer in the middle of a muggy and moist Seattle forest. And yet, I couldn't have been happier – until today, I had never been so happy in my entire life. The girl of my dreams, who two days ago seemed to be lost forever, worked in the same hospital as I did. I would see her just about every day. Despite all odds, she liked me. And I didn't just like her – I was crazy for her. I needed her like I needed oxygen. Other than my obligation to the hospital, she had become my reason for being. In two days, I had not one thought of Addison or an iota of the deep sadness and anger I had felt in New York. Because in Seattle, there was a whole new world. There was Meredith. And as long as there was Meredith, everything would be just fine.

_ I have never known  
The likes of this, I've been alone  
And I have missed things and kept out of sight.  
But other girls were never quite like this  
Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm mmm mmm._

_ Fallin', yes I am fallin', and she keeps callin' me back again._

_McIntern: Woohoo, you've reached the end! I just want you guys to know I turned this chapter out in one day. For you guys. Because that's how awesome you are – you give me the motivation to spend four hours in front of the computer, watching scenes over and over again to nail the dialogue. Seriously. I will be the first to acknowledge that I lifted large amounts of dialogue for the sake of accuracy, so I'd like to reiterate that these are not my characters; they and dialogue from the episodes belong to the wonderful Shonda Rhimes and her crack team of writers. I am simply borrowing them to tell a story. Most other chapters will be more original than this. Also…does anyone know is Kremchek is an actual neurosurgeon at Seattle Grace? I swear I've heard his name mentioned in the series, but I am not sure which episode he's mentioned in, or if I confused it with a different fanfic. If it is another author's creation, please let me know so I can credit you/edit the name. I also thought it might be Krevchek but that sounded too close to Karev to me so I nixed that idea. Oh, and I think I might have made a slight error in the timeline of Derek's move to Seattle, but hopefully it's so slight you didn't notice until just now. I'm just going to roll with it because otherwise I have to account for about five weeks of Derek's activities before starting at SGH. And one last note in my long Meredithesque ramble, I apologize for any errors in medical procedure that I make during the writing of this fic. I have an MD from Wikipedia (read: almost everything I know about the medicine I present I have gotten from the internet) and you should certainly not use medical information presented here to diagnose or treat yourself! Just so we're clear! Thank you for being wonderful, but now I am burnt out and get to do more Grey's research so that I can have Chapter 6 up by the end of this weekend hopefully!_


	6. Chapter 6: All the Right Moves

_McIntern: This chapter was surprisingly hard to write. I'm still not sure it's the chapter I intended to write, but here it is. It's a bit of filler, but a lot happened in the last chapter. Anyways, in an effort not to write a novel for an author's note, I've started a blog for the story (and all of my other thoughts and perspectives related to Grey's Anatomy) at my LiveJournal at http: // mcintern. livejournal. com/ (remove the spaces) (there's a clicky link on my profile under home page)__ . Everyone and anyone is welcome to comment._

**Chapter 6 – All the Right Moves**

Four weeks passed by more quickly than I ever thought imaginable. The only way I could mark the passage of time were the different surgeries I performed. I was finding Seattle to be much more to my liking than I had thought possible, though Meredith Grey was probably played a large role.

She had remained remarkably resistant to any hint that I might flirt with her, usually heading it off by asking a question about a surgery or saying she needed to check on a patient. She was afraid to let herself be with me. But in the last week or so, I had managed to get in a comment or a long glance before she suddenly excused herself. Could she be letting her guard down? It certainly seemed that way to me.

I, on the other hand, kept noticing more about her. The way her hair could be low-key but shiny at the same time. The way her eyes narrowed when I started to come on to her, which somehow made the blue even more vivid. The way her head tilted when she was trying to make a point or emphasize her words. And the way her eyes would widen if she saw me walking down the hallway towards her. With each day she became a larger part of my thoughts.

Even though she had started to be less cautious around me, she had been enforcing a strict no-touching rule. If I put my hand on her shoulder she'd shrug her way out of it, or if I'd step in close she'd step back ever so subtly, so that the distance between us remained the same. Her heart may have been saying yes, but her mind still said no.

It was fine by me; I'd take it slowly. There was no point coming on too strongly and pushing her away – I had far too much emotion invested in this woman for her to completely close herself off from me. I would win her over in time, she just needed to see that I didn't care that she was an intern. She needed to see that I'd protect her from the speculation.

She _had_, however, had a moment of weakness recently. I smiled at the memory.

_I was waiting for the elevator to take me up to the surgical floor for rounds. My sister, Kathleen, had sent me a text message:_

_ is it true??? ur living in a trailer???_

_ Not being very adept at texting myself, it took me a few minutes to bang out the message._

_ laugh all you want, the rumors are true._

_ As I searched for the last few characters, I caught a whiff of a very familiar scent. I looked up from my phone and sure enough, it was Meredith. She glanced tentatively at me and turned to face the elevator doors. I couldn't resist a peek at her body as she stood there in front of me – every single cell of hers was still as appealing as ever._

_ I finished my message, not looking at her. "Seattle has ferryboats."_

_ There was a pause. "Yes?" she said, more of a question than a confirmation. She probably thought I was out of my head._

_ "I didn't know that, I've been living here six weeks, I didn't know there were ferry boats." I looked up and she tossed her hair a bit. Yep, she was definitely loosening up a little._

_ "Seattle is surrounded by water on three sides," she pointed out._

_ "Hence the ferryboats." The elevator bell dinged to indicate it was finally reaching our floor. I pressed the send button. "Now I have to like it here. I wasn't planning on liking it here. I'm from New York – I'm genetically engineered to dislike everywhere, except Manhattan."_

_ Everyone on the elevator got off at our floor – it was only her and I on the elevator now. She pressed the button for her floor and I mine. "I have a thing for ferryboats."_

_ The doors closed. There was silence. Clearly she had to know what "ferryboats" was code for. Not that I didn't like regular ferryboats – but I certainly didn't have a "thing" for them._

_ "I'm not going out with you," she said with no explanation. She had figured it out._

_ I looked around, and pretended her declaration had come from nowhere. "Did I ask you to go out with me?" Pause. "Do you want to go out with me?" I smirked._

_ She adopted her favorite, most condescending tone to use with me. I sighed. "I'm not dating you, and I'm definitely not sleeping with you again. You're my boss."_

_ "I'm your boss's boss." My ego burst forth; it didn't care that I was only proving her point._

_ "You're my teacher," she continued. "And my teacher's teacher. And you're my teacher."_

_ And somehow, hearing her list the reasons she couldn't date me, my mind took me back to college. I was visiting Mark down at NYU over Thanksgiving Break during our junior year. He and I went out to a couple of bars._

_ "I'm your sister, I'm your daughter," I said, back in real life. That night with Mark, he had hit on anything with a pulse, including a couple of high school seniors with fake IDs. I'd joking told him the habit would catch up with him one day. "You're going to end up hooking up with some girl," I'd told him, "And she's going to tell you, 'I'm your sister.'" I laughed. "Or even, 'I'm your daughter.'"_

_ The habit had caught up with him eventually, hadn't it? Except this time, it was "I'm your best friend's wife." I mentally shook the thought away. I was with Meredith now, and I wouldn't let Mark infect any more memories of mine._

_ "You're sexually harassing me."_

_ I picked up on her tone. "I'm riding an elevator." If she really thought it was sexual harassment, she would have spoken up four weeks ago._

_ "Look, I'm drawing a line. The line is drawn. There's a big…line."_

_ I considered it for a minute. But I'd come too far to stop now._

_ "So this line," I said, smirking. "Is it imaginary, or do I need to get you a marker?" I looked her in the eye._

_ There was a moment of incredible tension, and all of a sudden her lips were forcing themselves against mine. The patient charts in her hands dropped to the floor and the force of her assault pushed me up against the elevator wall. As shocked as I was, my lips immediately found my place against hers, and I returned her kiss back as a full partner. Her hands cradled my head and my arms encircled her waist. This was what I had craved for the last month. Her passion was like a drug to me, and I had so badly needed a hit. The high was incredible – even more euphoric than before. We turned and I pressed her against the wall, sacrificing one of my arms to hold myself up. As the kiss escalated, my hands found her hair, and some deep part of my brain registered it as the source of her scent. The elevator dinged, indicating we'd reached her stop. She broke off the kiss suddenly, and we both looked to the floor indicator like Cinderella must have looked at the clock tower. She released me and dropped to the floor, hastily gathering the papers she'd abandoned. The doors opened and she strode out of the elevator, as if nothing had just occurred. I stared after her, still dizzy from the sudden rush of adrenaline._

_ "We'll talk later?" I asked weakly. She was long gone, there was no way she could hear me._

Not a week later, she'd stopped me in my tracks yet again.

She'd been stitching up one of the insane bike racers when suddenly he kissed her. Passionately. The way we had in the elevator. A flash of jealousy burned in my eyes, but just as quickly it passed, and I was amused. She held up her hand, and he left. She wasn't interested.

I had come in, and picked up right where I'd left off, asking her to go out with me.

_It's the thrill of the chase, isn't it?_ she'd asked me. _You know you're my boss, you know it's against the rules, you know I'll say no…"_

It had taken her slamming fellow intern Alex Karev into a wall before I could come up with an appropriate response.

_You and me. It's not the chase_, I'd told her. She still declined to let me take her out, but we'd reached an understanding. I wasn't tormenting her for fun. I was genuinely interested in and attracted to her. And maybe it was a step towards her letting me into her life.

"It's just everything about her," I told my sister Candace over the phone later that week. She was the youngest, a cardiothoracic resident who was entertaining fellowship offers for Stanford and University of Pennsylvania. "She's tough, but that just makes me want her even more. It isn't a game to me – she's my best chance at forever. I can just feel it."

"Derek," I could hear her exasperation over the phone. "Don't you think it's just within the realm of possibility that you've gone crazy?"

"You're wrong," I countered. "It's not love, not yet, but I know if she would let me, it could be. It _should_ be." I said the words with conviction.

"Listen, Der," she said, her voice worried. "I know I wasn't the biggest fan of Addison out of the four of us." My mind went back twelve years. She and Nancy had bonded over their mutual interest for obstetrics. Pamela had liked her because they were close in age and had similar, dynamic personalities. Kathleen had always been a peacemaker anyway – if she had harbored any misgivings about my relationship or engagement, she had never voiced them or made them known. Candace, on the other hand, had been quite jealous. We'd always been the closest, not in age, but in spirit. My youngest sister was everything Addison wasn't; she was an instigator, carefree, and very Zen. We were both hopeless romantics and dreamers – I remember she had been very disappointed when she met Addison. She'd told me we weren't compatible, that Addison would be too controlling. Maybe she knew, even back then, that Addison wasn't the right one. No one had ever known me as well as Candace. It was the first time I'd thought of Candace's warnings since that night I'd found them together. "I know I wasn't supportive. But it's been almost two months, Derek. You can't just stay in Seattle pretending nothing ever happened. You're still married. You need to decide whether or not it's over with Addison. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think you should talk to her. She's really bad, Der, Nancy's seen her."

My jaw tensed. I knew Nancy and Addison were good friends, but I had assumed that family loyalty would have meant something. I took a deep breath. It was getting easier to let go of the anger now that I was distanced. But it didn't mean I forgave her. The anger may be easing, but the pain burned strongly.

"Candy," I said softly, using a pet name I'd given her in grade school. "I told Mom, and I told everybody. We weren't doing well before this happened. It's like she took an axe to a rickety bridge. I'm not sure there's anything left to fix. But here, here I think I finally have a chance at real happiness, I really do." I sighed, and tried to find a way to explain it to her. "It's like I spent my entire life in a cell I wasn't aware of. And now I'm free and I can see the sky and breathe the fresh air and feel the grass, and I can't ever imagine going back into that cell. Meredith, she's my sky and my air and my grass. It's her scent. It's her face. It's her voice. It's her presence."

"Wow," she said, quietly. "You've really fallen for her, haven't you?"

"Yeah," I whispered. "If only she weren't an intern, she'd realize how much I really adore her."

Candace tutted on the end of the phone. It had taken quite a while to explain the circumstances of meeting Meredith. I wasn't entirely sure she believed me.

"Derek, just do me a favor and be careful," she implored. "Just remember that you lost your partner of eleven years just eight weeks ago. Remember that you're grieving your marriage. And…" she trailed off, as if she wasn't sure of her voice. "Remember that girls don't always feel the way boys do. Because if this girl crushes you, it's going to hurt even more."

I acknowledged her concerns; they were valid in any other circumstances. But surely Kathleen would've pointed out that Candace was projecting. Candy is flighty and dreamy – she falls for a guy and slowly becomes disillusioned with him, then leaves him for the next best thing. She's never been in a relationship longer than a few months, at most. She confuses charm for personality. She has a track record, and just because she's been hurt countless times doesn't mean it was going to happen to me. "So, I'm treating a rape victim. She had a real number done on her. Preston Burke and I had to operate on her at the same time."

Candace squealed. Being a cardiothoracic resident, she of course knew of Burke's many accomplishments and reputation. She had already told me earlier in the conversation that Seattle Grace had called the wrong Shepherd. She was secretly jealous – Mom would die if she had applied for a fellowship in Seattle, much less accepted one. Though our mother told no one, she wanted very much to keep her remaining family close together.

"She bit off the guy's penis, and then the bastard stumbles into our hospital. Luckily, she woke up from her coma, and she'll probably be able to leave in a couple of weeks," I said, and shook my head. "She doesn't have anyone though. She just moved here, and she's all alone."

"Derek," Candace cooed. "You know you'd never be lying in a bed alone; even if you're in Seattle, we'd all be there in a heartbeat."

I smiled. My sisters didn't give me nearly enough credit. "I know that, Candy. But I just don't understand." My voice burned with an anger so much hotter than the one that had overtaken me that night Mark had called me. "I don't understand what makes scum prey on innocent people."

"You never really recovered after Dad died, did you?" my youngest sister asked, sadly.

My father, David Shepherd, was mugged for his watch at gunpoint when I was eleven. He refused to give it up, because even with my dad bringing in an income things were tight at home and my mother had bought him that watch for a fifteenth anniversary present. The men shot him and left him for dead. Because of them, my hero had been taken from me at a tender age. I had difficulty finding male role models in my life from that point forward. As soon as I turned fourteen I had to get a job to afford clothes, school supplies, and anything else I might need because Mom was already working full time to provide the basic necessities. I harbored a lot of resentment towards those two men. Every year I wrote a letter to the New York State Department of Corrections to voice my insistence that neither man be eligible for parole that year. They were the reason my youth had been so painful. Seeing that rapist in there, how he so casually made decisions that ruined other people's lives, brought it all back like my father had just died all over again. It especially hurt now – I longed to tell Dad about Meredith, to hear him say something about that's how he'd felt when he had seen Mom for the first time. Even at eleven, I knew my parents had only ever had eyes for each other. Though I knew how I felt about Meredith, I'd have loved to have his reassurance and support.

But Candace knew all this already. She had only been seven when Dad was killed, but she had distinct memories of him. In fact, just weeks before he had given her a shiny new bicycle in honor of her First Holy Communion. Looking back, it had probably taken months for him to save up for it. He'd probably skipped quite a few beers with his buddies to be able to buy the bike. After he died, Candace had ridden the bike in circles on our front lawn for hours at a time, stopping only if absolutely necessary. She probably clung to it as her last link to him. Kathleen had noted with wonder that though it was Candy's first bike, she rode it round and round without training wheels, and never once fell.

"It just wasn't fair," I said, my voice unusually harsh. "It wouldn't have been fair to anyone, but he had five children. He was all we had."

"I know, Derek," she soothed. "But you saved that girl. And he's in jail now, and he won't hurt anybody again. She can live her life now, because you saved her."

Candace and I said our goodbyes and I went to take a shower. As crazy as it sounds, I talked to my dad for the first time in almost thirty years that night. I told him all about Addison and how she'd betrayed me, and then about Meredith. Even though I knew he couldn't hear me (or maybe he just couldn't respond), I knew he would've loved her. He would've said something fatherly. _Keep after her, Derek; she's only worth it if you make her work for it._ And then he'd have looked at Mom and smiled with a telling look in his eyes. He would have recognized the feeling and knew what it meant for me. But I would just have to be secure in the knowledge that Meredith was the best thing to ever happen to my life. Every dark spot has an equally bright light.

I sat on the edge of the bed in my trailer as I changed the alarm on my clock radio. Tomorrow I was going to go in early, with the residents and interns, and try to persuade Meredith into letting me buy her some coffee. I remembered what it was like to be an intern, to be tired and broke, and if I worked hard enough she'd have a very hard time saying no.

_McIntern: I tried to balance out the revelations of Derek's past with some fun MerDer scenes. I'm struggling a bit with trying to describe how Derek views Meredith without using the same words and metaphors all the time. So please let me know if my descriptions are getting tired! As always, thanks for reading, and I really love the responses I get from readers. And please check out the LiveJournal!_


	7. Chapter 7: Check Yes Juliet

_McIntern: I am the first to admit that this is a short chapter. It's kind of just filler, admittedly. But at the end of 1.4, No Man's Land, we see Derek and Meredith out to breakfast together and I couldn't help but get excited because IT'S THEIR FIRST DATE!!1!1!! Again, check out my LiveJournal at http:*.c*om (remove asterisk) for more CUFA scoop (yes, I've abbreviated the title). _

**Chapter 7 – Check Yes Juliet**

I sighed while I washed my hands. I was scrubbing out from removing a tumor in Jorge Cruz's brain. The man had come in with seven nails shot into his skull after he tripped while holding a nail gun on a construction job. It was a miracle he was alive. After removing the nails and restoring Jorge's sight, Meredith had hinted that he might have had a brain tumor to cause him to trip. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, she had been right. I had just removed 99% of the tumor, but whether Jorge's memory would be intact was another question entirely.

It was late, or rather early. It was hard to believe it had been two days since I first offered to buy Meredith breakfast. But apparently she was a grilled cheese and cold pizza kind of girl. Not that it mattered that much – it was a far cry from Addison and her personal chef – but it did make it harder for me to convince her she should have breakfast with me.

Jorge would not be awake for several hours yet – after going through two extensive brain surgeries in 48 hours, it would take well over the normal recovery period for him to wake and show us whether or not his memory was still there or not. I had the ICU nurse promise to page me when he woke, and stumbled down to the coffee cart for a triple espresso. It was my favorite cure-all shot for a long surgery.

I spotted Meredith heading towards the nurse's station from the on-call room. Though she'd been here all night, Jorge's wife Zona had requested Meredith be removed from the case. Meredith had tried to talk them out of the surgery, and Zona had obviously been offended. It had killed me to reprimand her, but it was my job, and she had been out of line. I could only hope that my eyes communicated to her how sorry I was.

I headed over. She looked every bit as tired as she must have felt.

"Hey," I said, leaning against the wall by the nurse's station. "Rough night?"

"What do you care?" she grumbled irritably. I had learned that she was adorable when she was tired, and clearly not a morning person.

"I'm only asking after my favorite intern," I said, smiling. She grimaced. There was no one even around; she could drop the act.

"Nothing really happened, I just had to get up a lot to check on some iffy patients," she said, yawning. "How did Jorge's surgery go?"

"Well, I'll tell you what," I teased, checking over the list of interns. It's just about 5, and rounds aren't until 6:30 today. I happen to know Drs. Hawkins and Aswart are also on call. The census is down, we don't really need three interns on call. Why don't I tell you how it went over breakfast?"

She vainly tried to protest.

"Dr. Grey, you're exhausted and hungry. It would be irresponsible of me to let you decline." I grinned, and stood close behind her. "Besides, we'll be back before Dr. Bailey even pulls into the parking lot."

She turned and looked back at me, as if unsure. Then, slowly and tentatively, she nodded her head.

"Great," I said brightly. "Meet me at the café across the street as soon as you check in on your last patient."

Fifteen minutes later I was sitting at an outdoor table at the Seatown Bistro, a charming little place that was best known for opening at 5 in the morning and being right down the street opposite to Seattle Grace. They also made some delicious waffles – it was the kind of place Mom would love to go for coffee. I made a mental note.

After purchasing a newspaper and putting in an order of orange juice, she walked up to my table. She was wearing a denim jacket and carrying a big bag. It was curious to me that this was the first time in a long time that I had seen her wearing something other than scrubs. I liked it.

"I was afraid you weren't going to show," I said softly, putting down my newspaper.

She rolled her eyes, but it was more playful than she had previously. "If I had any sense, I wouldn't. But since you promised to let me go before Bailey gets here, and I don't see any leftover grilled cheese or cold pizza lying around…"

I made a face and handed her a menu. "Yes, now you can eat some real breakfast. The waitress should be back soon, she took my drink order a little while ago."

She took the menu and perused it awhile. "So, are you going to tell me about Jorge's surgery, or was that just an excuse to get me here?"

I inhaled slowly. "The surgery went as well as could be expected, but I had only scrubbed out just before I invited you here. He hasn't woken up yet, so I'm not sure how damaged his memory is. But we did get just about all of the tumor, so the surgery itself couldn't have gone better."

She smiled mournfully. "I hope, for both of their sakes, that his memory is fine. It's awful when someone can't remember what a big part of their life you are."

I cocked an eyebrow. "You sound like you speak from experience."

She blushed and looked away quickly. "I mean, I imagine it must be. You know."

I stopped staring at her, but I could tell she was lying. Despite my best efforts, there was a lot about Meredith's personal life that I didn't know. In fact, the only thing I really _did_ know was that Ellis Grey was her mother.

The waitress came. Meredith ordered crepes and coffee, while I asked for the savory breakfast strata. She left to place our orders, and I had to catch myself when I realized I had been staring at the way Meredith looked against the eastern sunrise for nearly thirty seconds.

"So," I began, trying to recover, "I'll bet the other attendings haven't let you scrub in on anything nearly as exciting as any of my surgeries." I remembered the surgery astonishingly clearly – it was Meredith's first surgery. I had always believed that neurosurgeries were infinitely better than others – partly because basically a whole other surgery, a craniotomy, had to be performed before the problem could even be addressed.

"Well, you're right," she admitted, smiling at the waitress and thanking her as her coffee arrived. "Other than an abdominal bleed on that biker you saw kiss me I haven't been in on anything interesting."

"Consider it a perk to dating me," I said casually. My smile became open-mouthed as her face flushed red yet again.

"Oh no – you're paying for this, aren't you?" she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Which means…"

"That this is a date? Yes." I said, continuing to revel in the glory of her realization.

"Well, Derek, you've taken advantage of me yet again. The first time I was drunk, and this time I was tired."

"Hey, you're the one who took advantage of me –"

"Crepes for the lady, and strata for the gentleman," the waitress announced as she came to the table with our plates. I held my tongue until she asked us if there was anything else we needed, and then headed Meredith off by telling the server that the check was to come to me.

"I hate you right now," she said, but her eyes told a different story. It was amazing, how they were almost sparkling. Despite the front she was trying to put up, she obviously was quite glad to be here.

We began eating in companionable silence. She would glare at me every once in awhile, but I could tell from the way she ate her crepes that she hadn't had a real breakfast in too long. When she paused to pour some cream and sweetener into her coffee, I smiled at her.

"You know, since that craniotomy I haven't done anything really exciting," she said, stirring without taking her eyes off of me, "but with the way things are looking with Dr. Burke's patient, I could have a CABG with my name all over it tomorrow morning."

"Congratulations," I said, sighing slightly. A coronary artery bypass graft, or CABG surgery, was one of those procedures that many cardio fellows (including my younger sister Candace) cited as their inspiration for choosing the specialty. I had assisted on one early in my residency, but was not particularly enthralled. I was not looking forward to having to share my life with someone who thought that the rhythmic predictability of the human heart was their surgical calling.

I stepped back in my head. It amazed me how easily a future with Meredith materialized, almost as if it were being shown to me on a video screen. I simply accepted it as an inevitability, as if it were not a fantasy but instead a promo for my favorite primetime television show. There was never any question of whether she would let down her guard and begin to pursue a relationship with me – I just assumed that she would. _Am I going crazy, or is this meant to be?_ I wasn't sure if I could honestly answer the question without sounding like a lunatic.

We continued to eat when Meredith interrupted the oddly comfortable silence.

"I have to admit, Derek," she said, pushing the remains of her crepes around her plate with her fork. "You have exceeded my expectations as far as one night stands go."

I put down my orange juice. "I'm choosing to take that as a complement."

"It is," she assured me. "Most of them aren't nearly this persistent. I'm beginning to think you might actually be serious about this dating thing."

"Glad I'm making some headway," I countered. "It took long enough."

"Hey," she said, giving me a playful swat on the arm. "What am I supposed to think? Handsome stranger shows up, happens to be my boss, wants to pursue an honest-to-God relationship, and doesn't give up after countless refusals? That never happens to real people."

I grinned at her. I used to think this never happened to real people, too. Now I knew better.

"What?" she asked me after she surfaced from the dregs of her coffee.

"You said I was handsome."

She rolled her eyes. Banter was fun with her. She gave me just enough to feed off of, while keeping it fun.

"You have to admit," she said, never denying her admission. "From my end, it looks pretty unbelievable. How was I supposed to know that you weren't just lusting after me as a part of some midlife crisis?"

"Ouch." She didn't know how close to home that one hit. You could hear it in the tone of my mother and sisters, with the exception of Candace. They talked of 'outgrowing' the feelings I had for Meredith, as if the pangs I felt for her were at all similar to the tingling pain in my limbs when I was thirteen. They didn't know anything about it. "That one hurt – I'm not that old." I thanked the waitress as she returned with the check.

"Be that as it may – you have to see why I'm hesitant. I mean, do you know what this looks like to other people?" She grimaced. "Everyone already thinks I'm only here because of my mother, and if they find out you and I were…involved, they'll think I'm some opportunistic coattail-rider or whatever."

She was delightfully inarticulate – it was cute. She seemed so hardened most of the time, but when she talked there was this vulnerability that reminded me of talking to my nieces.

The waitress returned promptly with my receipt. I left a generous tip, and finished the last of my OJ as she cleared the plates. Meredith glanced at her watch.

"And I'd say right about now is when Cinderella needs to return to the hospital," she sighed and stretched. An intern's work was never done. She stood to leave and I grabbed her arm. She tried to jerk it away and frowned. "Can I help you?"

"Yes. By agreeing to go out with me again. Maybe tomorrow night?"

"Mmm, maybe," she said, delighting in the power she held over me. "Oh, shoot, not tomorrow night. Izzie…uh, Dr. Stevens, my roommate – I'm meeting her boyfriend, and…"

"Maybe some other time, then," I suggested. "But don't make me wait too long."

"I haven't said yes," she said in a singsong voice, again recalling memories of my young nieces. A silver Mitsubishi pulled past the café. "Oh, crap, that's Bailey's car, I'd better get back." She started walking briskly back across the street.

I smiled. She may not have readily admitted it yet, but she wanted to date me. That was okay, because I could wait. After all I'd been through with Meredith Grey already, I knew all I needed was a little bit of patience.

_McIntern: I wasn't exactly sure where to take Meredith during this date, since it's pretty much uncharted waters in the canon. All we know is that she agreed to go. But since she (admittedly while drunk) hooks up with Derek in the next episode (yes, car sex at Izzie's party in the next chapter!), I figure she must have been softening towards him at any rate. Next chapter will cover the important MerDer-centric events of 1.5, Shake Your Groove Thing!_


	8. Chapter 8: Dirty Little Secret

_McIntern: I know, normally I complain that chapters are hard to write, but this one was actually a lot of fun. I feel the need to point this out, that while I did rate this story T for its adult elements, there's a particularly…sultry scene in the end of the chapter. So, you've been warned, and if you're easily offended or faint of heart or something like that, well, sorry. For those of you out there, like me, who love a good love scene, well, this one's for you! And if you're anxious for more of my thoughts/reflections on writing this story, check out my LiveJournal! Link is in my profile as my website link. I'd post it in here but the Document Manager seems to not like it too much. Or, just type in your standard http, slap mcintern in front of livejournal, and then add a dotcom to the end. And there ya go!_

**Chapter 8 – Dirty Little Secret**

The day passed without another chance to interact with Meredith. As I lie in bed in the trailer that night, I hoped to everyone who would listen that she got the CABG she wanted and did well. Though I was biased, Meredith was talented in her own right and deserved the chance to be seen. I knew firsthand that Preston Burke, the Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Meredith's probable attending for the case, could be a royal son of a bitch to interns, but even he couldn't deny that Meredith was one of a kind. Part of me secretly hoped he scared her off of cardio.

The next morning had started poorly for me. I was all set to get to the hospital early to wish Meredith luck and perform a shunt insertion on an infant with hydrocephalus when I got into my monster Jeep only to discover the engine wouldn't turn over. The tow truck had taken forever to navigate to my place in the wilderness, and I had to ride back with it to the shop since I didn't have another car. I called one of my other neurosurgery attendings, Dr. Nelson, so that he could take over my shunt for me. As if that weren't enough of a rough start to the morning, the head mechanic told me that they wouldn't be able to fix the thing for several days. Apparently the necessary parts would be difficult and expensive to find. Just my luck.

Luckily the car rental shop where I had purchased the Jeep from was within walking distance of the repair place, and with no conventions in town, they were able to rent me a silver sedan for a couple of weeks. I finally arrived at the hospital, three hours after I had intended on arriving.

Once at Grace, I had a pretty slow day ahead of me – I headed in to the office to fill out some paperwork.

As I signed off on various expenditures with Seattle Grace's Department of Neurosurgery, I glanced at the clock. It was 10:30, and if all had gone well Meredith's surgery would be done and she'd be taking the patient to the recovery ward. I grabbed the chart for my latest admission and headed down to the OR floor to offer Meredith my support.

When I found the floor to be rather quiet and contained, I glanced around and spotted Dr. Bailey, Meredith's resident, still wearing the surgical mask around her neck from her cholecystectomy.

"Dr. Bailey," I asked, jogging up to her. "Has Burke's CABG let out yet?"

"No, sir," she said in that authoritative tone of hers, not looking up from her patient's chart. "I hear that Mrs. Patterson was having trouble coming off bypass. Figure it'll be at least another half hour."

"Thanks," I said. "Do you have an intern you could spare for my spinal pain guy? I need one in about an hour."

"Take Karev," she said, eyes still glued to the chart. "I've got him and Yang in the pit on sutures today, don't need both of them."

I hadn't worked with Alex Karev yet, but I'd heard plenty about his demeaning air with the nurses and his peers. I'd already had to pull Meredith off of him once. As much as I didn't like him for that, I had to be professional, and as far as I knew, he could be a hell of a surgeon. _Teach the doctor, not the asshole_, I said to myself.

With Bailey's recommendation, I decided I had enough time to run to the cafeteria for lunch. After passing on several unappetizing selections, I finally bought a chef salad. I didn't miss much from New York, but the meals were definitely near the top of the list. The checkout line was long, and I decided my time would be best served eating the salad on the way up to my office while finishing up the paperwork I had started.

I passed by the ORs again on my way back when Meredith herself exited the scrub room with George O'Malley at her heels. It was funny, the way he followed her around like a lost puppy. I guessed he was having even less luck catching her attention than I was.

"Hey," I said brightly. It was the first time I'd seen her in over 24 hours.

"Hi," she breathed.

"I heard you did a CABG with Burke." I smiled and cut O'Malley's path off to draw level with Meredith.

"Yeah," she said at the same time I asked if she had held the heart during surgery.

"Yeah," she repeated, in the same blank tone.

"All right," I picked at my salad with my fork. "It's an amazing feeling, isn't it? You never forget your first time." Personally, the surgery hadn't held a lot of draw for me, but I wasn't going to spoil her day and tell her that.

"It was pretty great just to watch," O'Malley interjected, sidling between me and Meredith to lean against the elevator doors. I glared almost imperceptibly at the awkward young intern. He turned to face Meredith, trying to look casual but sweating anxiety from his pores. "Vicarious thrills, you know?" I watched the way he looked at her, with his pleading eyes. It amazed me that she could either ignore that look so easily or not notice it in the first place. Maybe if O'Malley hadn't been so pitiable I would have been jealous.

"Yeah," she said, for the third time. Her voice contained none of the thrill it had when she'd left her first surgery with me, and while I personally found cardio to be boring, an intern in the first months of her residency should have been bouncing off the walls at such an opportunity. Something was off about Meredith, but since I hadn't seen her in the last day, I had no idea whether it was the surgery or something else that had her preoccupied.

Meredith and O'Malley stepped into the elevator when it opened, and she turned to face me.

"See ya later?" I asked, more as a question than a goodbye. I was concerned, and I was sure it showed on my face.

"Bye," she said, monotonous as ever, holding her hand up weakly to pass for a wave goodbye. I started again with my salad as I headed down the hallway to my office, wondering what could've gone wrong in surgery that O'Malley hadn't noticed. I left to get the chart for my spinal pain patient and paged Dr. Karev to the patient's room.

---

Three hours later, I came back up to the surgical floor from an ER case. The middle-aged office worker had sustained blunt force trauma to the head from a car crash and hemorrhaged. I couldn't save him. I could still hear his mothers' cries echoing through the lobby as I told her there had been nothing more we could do. It was this part of surgery that I hated the most. It always brought back the night Mom had gotten the phone call about my father.

As I waited on the elevator, I wondered if Karev had followed my orders or gone rogue on me. My spinal pain guy, Jerry Frost, had prescribed himself ten milligrams of Dilaudid and had trademark signs of being addicted to painkillers. Karev wanted to kick him out on the street with a referral to a rehab program. I had to remind him that as a doctor, he had to treat every patient's pain as if it were real. _Remember that part of the Hippocratic Oath? I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required?_

Hopefully Karev could take instructions, but he seemed like the type of egotistical intern that might have taken patient care decisions into his own hands before.

As I passed by the patient's room on the way to the nurse's station, I heard the groans of someone in considerable pain. Sure enough, it was my patient. The one I had entrusted to Karev.

I came in to try and help the nurse keep him calm. "Hey, Mr. Frost! We're going to take care of you, alright?"

"Where the hell you been?" he cried out, tears welling in his eyes.

Something in his voice struck a nerve. "Now just hang on!" I said.

"Where the hell you been?" he repeated, still writhing on the bed but beginning to calm down under the nurse's ministrations. I stalked out towards the waiting room to find that asshole intern of mine. I hadn't been able to save the blunt force head trauma, but damn it if I was going to let Jerry, whose pain was completely manageable, suffer needlessly, regardless of an addiction. I wasn't that poor a doctor.

Sure enough, I found him in the research library.

"When I tell you to start a central line, you start a central line. No judgment, no question!"

"The guy's been in seven hospitals in the last four months, he's a major addict," he responded levelly. But I did notice that he didn't look me in the eye.

"The patient has a 3-lumbar fusion." Pain was a common side effect following a fusion, even when the surgery was successful.

"He's a junkie," Karev retorted. "We shouldn't be giving him –"

"Yeah!" I interrupted. I didn't know whether it was the lost ER patient, or Meredith's sudden distance, the fact that Karev was being an ass, or a combination of them all, but I'd had it. "He's an addict. But his pain is real." Karev turned away, unwilling to acknowledge that he was wrong. "Now lose the attitude. Get down there and start a central line." I watched as he stormed out of the room, wondering if I was letting my personal stresses leak into my teaching responsibilities, for just a moment. But it was irrelevant – Karev had disobeyed a direct order from a superior and in the process caused the patient undue stress and discomfort. He deserved to be reamed out for that one.

Nonetheless, it shouldn't have been a question. I would go and check up on Meredith and make sure she was okay, and then my day could continue as usual. I came back out to the third floor nurse's station and saw her there. I'd try to cheer her up, and it would do the same for me. It was a win-win situation.

I leaned on the counter next to her as she scribbled something on a chart, trying to see and read her face.

"You okay?" I asked, my concerned tone slipping past though I hadn't wanted it to. I didn't want to seem like the hovering…date, I guess, but I did want to know what was up. Oh well, might as well lay my cards on the table.

She stared up at me. Normally, depending on her mood, her eyes would have widened in expectation or narrowed in suspicion. Instead, her face just – failed to register.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good," she dismissed, trying to shift her attention back to the chart.

"You sure?" I asked, frowning. "Because you seem not okay."

She looked back at me, perhaps more committed to the brave face. Her eyes still betrayed her worry, though.

"I'm fine – CABG was long." Now I knew she wasn't fine – interns may work long hours, but when it comes to surgery they never admit fatigue or weakness, especially not to an attending, regardless of their relationship with said attending. That would be setting one's self up for being left out for more grueling, advanced procedures.

"Well, let me take you out dinner tonight, you can tell me all about it." I stared at her, trying to elicit some response. "Real food, waiters, big chunks of carbs in a basket…"

Her eyes locked onto mine – amazing that even while she was trying to avoid me and my interrogation that she could take my breath away. But she continued her heartbreaking poker face and turned her back to me to retreat.

"I can't."

I wasn't going to give up that easily. I followed her to the end of the counter.

"Forget about the party."

"You know about the party?" she asked, her eyes wide with concern. Finally, some sort of emotion was being displayed on her face.

"Your friends can be at the party, you and I can be alone somewhere else."

"How do you know about the party?" she demanded, stuck on the bit about the damn party.

I had passed Stevens, one of Meredith's roommates, ordering beer on the hospital phone earlier, and Karev had let slip under his breath something about not being invited to her party. But I was just going to let her assume the whole hospital knew, and truth be told, it was a definite possibility. Rumors spread faster around here than they had when I was in junior high school.

"Thanks for not inviting me, by the way," I said, tilting my head playfully. "That felt good."

I began to walk away, and turned my head to drink her in one last time. To my delight, she was still staring at me, no doubt trying to figure out how I knew about her party.

"Dinner, think about dinner. Perfect opportunity." I faced her now.

"Well –" she protested as her pager beeped. She looked at me, pleading with her eyes. _Forgive me? Don't tell anyone else about the party?_ I shrugged and walked away, leaving her to dash off towards the ICU.

---

I had thought that Meredith was having a bad day until I'd stopped at a vending machine to buy an iced tea. The day had picked up in some respects; I was running to consults every few minutes, but they generally ended up being fruitless. While I was inserting my dollar, I heard Richard storm out of Burke's OR – he and Meredith were back in with the CABG patient. Patricia, Richard's feisty assistant, quickly trotted off to match his stride.

"Leave room in my schedule tomorrow for me to meet with Burke and Grey about the Patterson situation," he barked at her.

I frowned and turned to Dr. Bailey, who had turned away from the scene with a steely look in her eye.

"What was all that about?"

"My _idiot_ intern confessed to popping a glove in surgery _in front of_ the patient's _husband_, leaving the hospital open for _liability_," she said icily, putting emphasis on some key words. "I _know_ I have taught her better than to do _that_."

So that was what had Meredith deflecting. It was a serious mistake, one that could put her career at stake. Surely, though, Richard knew of Meredith's abilities and would lessen the punishment?

I had tried to talk with her after she hung up her phone on the catwalk, but she had simply gotten defensive and left me with a cryptic message. I was guessing dinner probably wasn't on her mind anymore, so I texted her to call me about tonight, and left to check in on Jerry before I left for the day.

---

I was doing my hair in the paltry mirror in the trailer bathroom on the off chance that Meredith called and wanted to go out. She still hadn't called or texted or given me any sign that she had indeed received my message.

_So, the mighty Derek is hanging on the telephone?_

For this girl, I was willing to just make my move and wait there out on the limb. Because I knew she was worth it. She was the sum total of my existence, my reason for being, the person whose life I was destined to enter. I knew it was only a matter of time. If tonight wasn't the night, I'd be disappointed, but I'd be here tomorrow night too, and the next, waiting for my foot in the door.

Of course, I hadn't counted on being paged.

I had gone to check on Jerry Frost. When he reported his pain to be at a manageable threshold, I'd called him out as the addict that he was and ordered Karev to give him some information on treatment and to discharge. Though Karev was a bit of a maverick, I was sure he was only too willing to go along with these directions. That said, I had left the hospital confident that the weird work day had ended.

But of course, as I was putting the finishing touches on my hair the beeper went off.

And it was 372. Jerry Frost. Discharged Jerry Frost.

Apparently not anymore.

I called Karev.

"He was almost out the door to the hospital, but he was struggling and giving me and Izzie Stevens a hard time. She went to call Psych and he freaked out, bolted, and took down a nurse. I'm almost positive he has a concussion, blew his left pupil. He's in CT right now."

"Have the results ready for me by the time I get there," I sighed. "Good work, Karev."

Every night I'd been on call, I'd slept at the hospital and had no major catastrophes. Hell, I wasn't even on call tonight, it was Kremchek. But he was supposedly in the middle of a pretty massive brain bleed. A surgeon's work is never done, I suppose.

Forty five minutes later I was looking at Jerry Frost's CT results.

"That was one hard fall." I turned to them after giving them a once over. "What do you see?" In addition to Karev, I now had Stevens, who was probably lurking in hopes that she could scrub in in the likely event that the junkie would need surgery.

They both stepped forwards, and Stevens looked intently right where I wanted her to.

"A subdural bleed," she offered.

"With midline shift," Karev supplemented.

I nodded slightly. "We have to evacuate this now."

I picked up the phone to dial down to the OR floor to get a room. "Anywhere else you have to be, Dr. Stevens, or are you in?" The imp inside of my head cackled – I knew full well that Stevens was missing her own party.

She hesitated, then said, "Brain surgery – are you kidding me?"

I smiled. "That's what I thought."

---

As if a magnet directed me there, I found Meredith's house in Queen Anne's Hill quite easily despite only having been there once. Maybe on some animal level I had picked up her scent.

I drove down the winding lane with new insight into Alex Karev. During the surgery on Jerry, which had gone well, he alluded to the fact that his father was an addict that wreaked havoc on his own life. Maybe Karev had some God-given right to refuse to enable a junkie's destructive habits.

Unfortunately for him, while I admired him as a person, as my subordinate I was his God and I was giving him no such right. Tough luck.

Meredith had left nothing on my phone cluing me into whether or not she was in so I decided to pay her a visit. We were dating, after all, and she'd essentially stood me up – I'd bet she'd be in no condition to be able to argue that she'd never agreed to the date in the first place.

In front of her house, there were dozens of cars – Stevens' party was raging on without her. And there was Meredith, my saving grace, drunkenly bobbing and swaying on her porch to some serene song floating from inside. Meredith, my angel, with a bottle of tequila in her hand.

I went to go meet her on the porch, but something about the sight mesmerized me. It was sad, I knew, watching the poor girl's excuse for dancing in public, but even in her impaired state she had a grace and presence that just captured my attention. I simply leaned against the car, watching her and drinking in the idea, the thought, the reality of her.

I smiled. It was time to do what I'd come here to do.

"You know, in some states you could get arrested for that."

Her head came up and the dancing stopped. Her eyes met mine and just locked on with an unprecedented clarity. She grinned and began walking down the path, swinging her arms about a little and still clutching her tequila. I met her halfway as she continued to stroll down the walkway.

"So you blew me off for a bottle of tequila? Tequila's no good for you. It doesn't call, it doesn't write, and it's not nearly as much fun to wake up to."

Her eyes never left mine, and she just looked at me full on with this dazzling, happy smile she had yet to reveal to me. She grabbed the lapels of my blazer and pulled me closer to her, the depths of her eyes never leaving mine. I smiled back, and tilted my head to complement hers. We kissed each other without the fury and tension that had characterized our kiss in the elevator, but with a passion just the same. We paused briefly, and our lips met again, not crushing each other but coming together in tandem with softness.

She broke the kiss again, and in a breathy voice whispered, "Take me for a ride, Derek."

With her hand still clutching the folds of my shirt, I led her towards my rental. There were way too many people in the house to go in without getting caught, but no one was on the street. If anyone happened to notice us they would be too drunk to remember.

I climbed into the driver's seat and unlocked the passenger's side for her. It seemed too formal for what we were going to do. I reclined the seat back while she slowly and sensually pulled her lightweight knit shirt over her head. Tossing it to the side, she straddled me and began on my shirt buttons, fumbling on them a bit before I gently pushed her hands away and undid them myself. I smiled slightly up at her, and she craned her neck down to pick up the steamy kiss where we had left it.

It was better than I had ever remembered. It was softer and gentler, and not just viewing the partner as a means to an end. It wasn't just sex, it was sex with Meredith, and I knew from now on any other encounters I might have would pale in comparison to this. It was steamy and voluptuous without the harsh hurriedness or agonizing anxiety characterizing a one night stand. There was familiarity and comfort, but it was still so _hot_.

A half an hour later, we were kissing again. Meredith made advances to go a second time, when I broke the kiss.

"You know, it sounds like the party's winding down," I said, putting my hands on her shoulders as a gentle request to stop, sliding them slowly down to her elbows. "Listen to me!" I moved them into her air and ran them down her face to cradle her chin. "We should probably sneak inside now."

She smiled. "Well, we've done enough sneaking for the night. It was good sneaking, but enough sneaking."

I slid my shirt, which we'd been using to cover ourselves, up over her shoulders and began to help her button it.

"Yeah, I'd say we're pretty good sneakers." I cradled her face again and pulled her back to kiss her.

Neither of us had seen her coming – we were so wrapped up in each other that we had paid no mind to our surroundings. There was a knock on the window.

We both whipped our heads around to see Miranda Bailey, dressed up and made up as I'd never seen her, gazing in my driver's side window. The smile slid quickly off of my face at the sight of Meredith's resident and direct superior.

With that same deadpan glare she always gave things that met her disapproval, she said, "You mind moving this tail wagon? You're blocking me in." She walked away, giving no further indication of what she'd seen. Even so, Meredith's fears were coming to life in the split seconds that passed.

She looked back at me, frowning and with her eyebrows drawn close together. I stroked her hair.

"Apparently not good enough," I said, still gazing into and lost in her eyes.

She brushed at her hair, put her hand down to support herself, and sighed. I grabbed her purple shirt and put it on the center console, while putting the key in the ignition and letting the car drift forward in drive as she pulled her jeans up and buttoned them.

She fell back into the passenger seat and we traded shirts. As I did up my buttons, I just sat there, listening to her but not daring to look. As amazing as the sex had been, it had come at a high price, and though Meredith had initiated it, I was sure she'd blame me for the constant flirting. For all my pushing, she would be the one to bear the brunt of Bailey's anger.

We both sat there, again fully clothed, not daring to look at each other. I took a deep breath and finally laid my eyes upon her face.

"Would you like me to walk you back up and end this properly?" I asked. I felt it was the only honorable thing left that I could do.

She nodded, but her eyes stared off at something to my right, and her expression was distant. "I'd like that."

With my arm in the small of her back guiding her (she held her alcohol well but was nevertheless still drunk), we advanced on the walkway back to her front porch. I briefly stuck my nose in her hair, just to get a whiff of that light floral aroma again. I wanted to savor this night with all of my senses.

At her front door, I turned her to face me, and planted a light, tender kiss on her. She accepted it without really returning it, but without resistance either. Her eyes shifted up to mine.

"Good night, Meredith," I whispered, smiling.

She seemed to break her trance and gave me her signature, slight smile. "Good night, Derek."

I began to make my way back to my rental car, and I heard her turn the knob, accompanied with the sudden crescendo of people losing themselves. With the squeak of the hinges, and the sounds of her flats scaling the steps into the house, our reunion was over.

I pulled the rental car out from in front of Meredith's driveway and made my way out of Queen Anne's Hill once again, my mind boiling over just as it had been that morning weeks ago.

_Bailey knew. _Bailey knew and she couldn't do anything to me about it. So she'd put Meredith through the wringer. Because even if she didn't know that Meredith's pain was my pain, she knew I'd feel guilty for inflicting this on her.

But my thoughts wandered back to Meredith. Though I didn't dream for a minute that she did or would ever belong to me, I began to realize that in my thoughts she was always _my_ Meredith, as if to separate the front Meredith put up while we were in public from the one who begrudgingly let me buy her breakfast, or kissed me tenderly, or asked me to _take her for a ride_.

My God.

I'd shown up and seen her drunkenly dancing with a bottle of tequila in her hand.

Drunk.

She'd been drunk, and while I was intoxicated by her, I was physically sober.

I'd had sex with Meredith while she was drunk.

Was it still considered taking advantage when she was the one who initiated it?

Was it my responsibility, as the sober one, to stop her?

How could I when the thing she'd wanted from me was the same thing I'd wanted so desperately to give her?

How could I let her risk her career like that when she was so obviously incapacitated?

Had her soft kisses, sensual lovemaking, and profound gazes real or a product of the alcohol?

_What had I done?_

_McIntern: Mmm, MerDer sex. So satisfying. Err, anyway, I had a lot of fun trying to come up with how Derek sees Meredith – it's like he knows they're meant to be and they have amazing chemistry, but since she won't let herself fall in love with him yet, he's kind of just stuck in that infatuation/lust phase. And I always imagined this sex being different from their one night stand – how can you know someone like that and think about them (because as much as she denies it, you know Meredith's thinking about him and fantasizing – I know I would be!) and not just go about it in a totally different way? Another thing – no one ever seems to mention how weird it is that Derek knows that Meredith's drunk and goes for it anyway! So I'm exploring that. I discuss writing this in greater depth on my LiveJournal (hint hint, wink wink ;D ). I want to have the next chapter up by this time next week, hopefully sooner!_


	9. Chapter 9: No More Mr Nice Guy

_McIntern: Look at me and my quick update! I didn't even think it was possible. There wasn't a ton of room for me to deviate here but we have to move the plot along somehow, and I feel the aftermath of the car sex is important to the story. It's another longish one. Enjoy. And be sure to check out the LiveJournal (link is in my profile!)._

**Chapter 9 – No More Mr. Nice Guy**

_Just my luck_.

The silver car had proved not-too-adept at navigating the winding wilderness roads that led to my property. Since the War Machine was not yet fixed, I'd had to trade rentals for a model with four wheel drive. I was now driving a little black Subaru Legacy. I missed my Desert Storm buggy.

The car _was_ better at handling the terrain, I thought to myself as I drove to the hospital in the pouring rain. It was the kind of day that made you just want to stay inside the house and watch old movies with people who put way too much emphasis on their words. The killer about being a surgeon is that if you did that, you may be sentencing some people to death. Especially when you're me, and sometimes your unique talents are the only shot the patient's got.

By some miracle, it was only overcast and not raining at all when I pulled into the hospital parking lot and cruised, almost automatically, to my Department Head space. Luckily, I looked before I pulled in, and saved myself from running my new rental straight into the bumper of a huge Ford Explorer.

Whoever this guy thought he was, he wasn't funny. I didn't honestly think that any of my fellow neurosurgeons hated me, but I wasn't sure I'd recognize the signs if they did. My first thought was of Jim Nelson, who had been the interim Head of Neurosurgery when Richard had called me. Nelson seemed too meek and mild to drive a Ford Explorer, much less park it haphazardly in my space, but who really even knew?

I piloted the Subaru towards the next best spots, the Hospital Staff Only spots. Sure enough, a familiar blue Jeep Cherokee was next to my empty spot. And a familiar bronze-headed intern was digging for something in the passenger seat. I dashed into the spot before anything else could screw up my work day before it even began, slammed the little car into park, and opened the door.

She turned around to enter the hospital and stopped dead in her tracks when she recognized me leaving the little black car.

"Crap," she said. I grimaced and lowered my briefcase.

"Crap?" I said irritably.

She continued to stare at me, and held up a finger. "I'm late." She sidled through the gap between my car door and her Jeep, and made a beeline for the hospital.

I turned to watch her and closed the door to the Legacy. "You're avoiding me!" I called.

"Yes," she said turning, but not stopping. "But also late."

I jogged a few steps to catch up with her. "Oh," I said, lowering my voice since there were other people, hospital people, around now. "Are we going to talk about this?"

The infamous car sex had happened over 24 hours ago. I had wanted to talk to Meredith then, but she had to go to a disciplinary meeting with Burke and Richard regarding her CABG patient, and though I managed to learn from her that she was simply on one month's probation for her mistake, it was all I'd managed to say to her that day. Meanwhile, Bailey and I had a stare down on the stairs to the catwalk. I had tried to use my powers as an attending and department head to intimidate her, but the woman was made of stone. I was worried about what was going to happen to Meredith.

"No." It was short, brief, and contained no hints of wanting to continue the conversation. I was astounded. Didn't we need a game plan?

I turned to her, to try to read her. Her face was carefully blank, trying to betray nothing.

"About us and Bailey and what she saw?" I tried again. She kept walking, and quickly glanced at me.

"I don't need to talk about it, I experienced it." She turned her head to face mine. "Naked."

We walked into the entrance doors and the hospital.

"Yes," I said, a smile breaching my face and my voice. "This is getting complicated."

"Complicated for _me_," she stressed, as if I hadn't worried about that enough. "I'm the intern sleeping with the attending. Bailey isn't speaking to me anymore." She sighed and turned to face where she was going again.

"Not that that's a bad thing," I said, trying to keep my tone light. I didn't need to worry her by worrying. She didn't need to know I was just as concerned for her relationship with her resident as she was. It would only make things worse.

"If I was a better guy, I'd walk away," I told her, as a joke. I was hoping she'd respond with _Good thing you aren't_ or _That won't make anything better_.

"Yes, you would," she said instead, quietly.

I frowned and looked at her, trying to see if she was joking. It didn't appear that she was.

"Do you want me to be a better guy?" I asked. And by better guy, do you want me to leave you alone?

"Yes." She said, without hesitation, confidently. My heart fell. I pressed the button for the elevator, and tried to decide what I'd tell her to change her mind and bolster her confidence in us. I'd had too much of a taste for Meredith to give her up just to be honorable. Sure, it was remarkably selfish, but after living so long without her I couldn't imagine it any more.

"No," she said, after a hesitation. I whipped my head around. Maybe she realized our connection, too. Maybe I'd really gotten through to her about how much I really wanted this to become something. There was hope after all. I watched her, expectantly, and when she didn't do anything, I stepped in to bridge the distance between us.

She looked up at me. I was trying to cultivate a poker face, but was sure my eyes were smiling too widely to make it work.

"Crap," she repeated. I couldn't help but smile now. She was caught and she knew it – she had finally let herself admit that she, too, was invested in our relationship. She held her arms up, as an excuse and an apology. "I'm late."

Interesting. She'd tried to play off her admission as a realization that she was late. But the hesitation was too deliberate.

"Take your time," I called after her as she dashed off towards the locker room. "Think about it," I said quietly to myself as I pressed the button for the elevator again. I could hear myself doing the "honorable" thing by letting her make the choice, but after all my hard work I was sure she was giving in to her feelings for me. If they were half as intense as mine for her, she wouldn't be able to fight them much longer if she tried.

---

I waited in the elevator to be taken down to my office. We'd just finished rounding on my Parkinson's patient with spinal pain, Edward Levangie. I put Meredith on the case because she answered correctly first – I was trying to decide whether that was because she just had a natural grasp on all things medicine (quite possible, especially given her pedigree) or that I'd taught her more about neuro than any other intern.

Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking about that decision, because when everyone else got off the elevator, I was left alone with a glaring Miranda Bailey.

She stood slightly behind me, arms folded and frowning. I noticed I also had my arms folded. I looked back to her.

"Miranda," I greeted, acknowledging the short woman. We both knew why she was there.

"Excuse me?" she asked, adopting a tone.

"Well that's your name, right? It's on your jacket." I gestured towards the left breast of her lab coat, which read "Dr. Miranda Bailey, M.D."

She simply looked at me, half annoyed and half amused.

"Fine. I'll just call you Bailey then." I turned back to face the elevator door.

"You think you're charming, in that talented, neurotic overly-moussed-hair sorta way," I paused, frowning and faced her. "Good for you." Her hands moved to her hips in a defiant gesture. "But if you think I'm going to stand back and watch while you favor her over…"

I turned back again, indignant.

"I don't favor her, she's good!" I said as the elevator doors opened. She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm sure she is," she said dismissively, moving to get off at this stop. It was time for a last ditch effort to get Bailey to keep her silence.

"You know what?" She looked over her shoulder at me. "Can I point out that, technically, I'm your boss?"

She rocked back on her right hip and stuck her left leg out to distance herself from me.

"You don't scare me," she said, and her voice was sassy with no indication that she was shaken by the veiled threat. The door began to close, and she caught it with her hand. "Look, I'm not going to advertise your extracurricular activities with my intern, however the next time I see you favoring Meredith Grey in any way," she raised her eyebrows to emphasize her point, "I'll make sure she doesn't see the inside of an OR for a month."

My face softened, concerned for what that would mean for Meredith's career. As an intern, you start out as a person with tremendous medical knowledge, but that alone doesn't help you in surgery. Surgeons learn by doing, so the more surgeries an intern can get into, the better off they are when it comes time to take the exams to pass into the next stage of residency and when the Chief of Surgery chooses which of those residents will continue in the program. Missing a month of surgeries would set anyone back considerably. Especially if the reason behind that probation was their _extracurricular activities._

"Just for the sake of balance," Bailey warned as she walked away from the elevator. The doors closed and I sighed. Bailey would not be intimidated into being kept quiet. Meredith's career was in my hands.

---

I walked out of the viewing room, shaking my head. Bailey had called Burke for a consult on her patient with the enormous tumor, and upon looking at her films decided she would need a neuro consult as well. Lucky for her, I was the one who answered that consult.

Then, of course, Burke insisted on squabbling about where we should start. If he would just let me start and resect the tumor from the spinal canal, he would be free and clear to work on her chest. Plus, his procedure would require a much larger incision. If he started on her chest and then we flipped her over to work on the spine, who knows how much drainage would come from her chest? More than from her spine, I was sure of that. But it appeared that Burke, with his seniority, would win in this case. I knew I wasn't used to having to work as a team with other surgeons, but it would appear in Burke's five years as a cardio attending at Grace that he wasn't either.

Miranda followed a distance behind me as I sipped my coffee. As I rounded the corner around the door, I saw none other than Meredith Grey. In my new resolve to not favor her, I walked past her without so much as a glance. Maybe she was there for Dr. Bailey anyway.

No such luck.

"Dr. Shepherd," she said, very businesslike. I wheeled around and tried to stifle a smile. It was hard not to smile when she was the one person who always put one on my face.

Miranda stopped in her tracks, as well, presumably to chaperone us.

"Mr. Levangie, the Parkinson's patient, is he a good candidate for DBS?" By that, of course, she meant deep brain stimulation, a technique used to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson's. Stevens had mentioned it during rounds, but Edward had made it clear he would not be having the surgery.

"Yes, but he's not interested."

"Okay, but I think it's worth talking to him again, pushing him."

She was questioning me. Though she had clearly learned to talk to me, and not go directly to the patient as she did in the case of Jorge Cruz, I could not afford her any slack. It was strange, that scolding her would be the best thing for me to do for her. I was under Miranda Bailey's watchful eye.

"We are talking about brain surgery that is performed while the patient is wide awake," I said in an icy tone. "There is a risk of paralysis; there is a risk of death. The patient doesn't want it. It is not my job to _push_ him into anything, and it's definitely not _yours_." I put extra emphasis on the last part, as a warning. I wish it could have come with a subtitle. _Please forgive me, but it's for your own good._

She stared at me like a deer in the headlights. Summoning her reserves of courage and never breaking eye contact, she quietly ventured, "Okay, but.."

"You're clearly uncomfortable with my decision in this case, it's probably best that you don't scrub in."

She had been blindsided. "But.."

I put my hands on my hips. "It's a minor procedure, you won't be missed."

She continued to stare for a few moments too long, and I nodded slightly to indicate the conversation was done. She was angry and confused, but she turned and walked away. Her medical expertise may not be missed, but I knew that, at least for me, her presence certainly would be.

Miranda Bailey leaned against the door frame to the x-ray viewing window, with her hip cocked to the left, and one of her small, dexterous hands resting on it. She gave me an appraising look, and I looked back. I shook my head.

"You know, they call you the Nazi," I told her, trying to cushion the blow I'd just dealt to Meredith and myself.

"So I've heard," she said seamlessly, blinking and a slight smile playing at her lips.

---

A couple of hours later, I was stewing in the guilt that accompanied bullying Meredith in front of her resident. It wasn't fair to her. I was the one who pursued a relationship, I was the one who had showed up at her house, and yet I couldn't be punished. Both of us were in it but Meredith was the one who had to suffer. I decided to page her and talk to the patient again – I personally believed she was right in that Mr. Levangie might not have seen all of his options clearly, and I could make up with Mer to boot.

I sent the page to her and headed up for the patient's room, chart in hand. Finally, I reached room 3741.

"How's your back?" I asked as I strode in. Mr. Levangie was sitting in bed racked with painful spasms, as always.

"Still good," the gruff old man answered.

"Good," I said, and turned to the patient's daughter. I could never remember her name, but she was caring and always by her father's side. She reminded me a lot of my sister, Pamela – always waiting in the wings to help. "How are you, good?" I touched her shoulder. She didn't answer, but did look up. _I know this is hard,_ I wanted to tell her. _Keep your chin up_.

I stepped beside the bed. "Can you lean forward for me? I just want to check something." He leaned forward, and I applied pressure to his spine.

"Does that feel okay?"

"Yeah…"

"Right here?" Meredith was right, he was a good candidate.

Meredith walked into the room and sighed, looking exasperated. She didn't let any of it leak into her voice. "Did you page?"

I turned my head to her and nodded. I walked towards the end of the bed.

"Mr. Levangie, have you given any more thought about the other surgical options we discussed this morning?" I made notes on his chart and tucked my pen back into my scrub top.

"What? Why would I? I already told you, no." His voice was cold and closed, unwilling to consider the other options. I took a deep breath and nodded. I had expected as much, but it was worth a shot. "I'm letting you cut into my back, but that's not enough for you. All you guys ever wanna do is cut."

"Dad, just listen to what he has to say," his daughter asked quietly.

"I already listened," he argued.

I sighed. "Sir, there's a very small window of opportunity here. You know, once the Parkinson's progresses to the point of dementia, you know, you're no longer a candidate for DBS."

"And when I'm no longer a candidate, is that when you people will leave me the hell alone?" He looked me in the eye and held the contact, daring me to challenge him again. "What, do I have to start drooling and forget my name to get a little peace and quiet?"

I looked away. I was a brilliant surgeon, but one thing I could not do was convince a patient to have a surgery he didn't believe in. "Alright, I'll check back with you later. Try to get some rest."

I took the chart and brushed past Meredith. It was time to scrub in on the tumor surgery and see if I couldn't convince Preston Burke to see my side of things.

I headed into the scrub room of OR 1, where Bailey was giving some diatribe to Yang and O'Malley about the grueling surgery. I scrubbed my hands vigorously and rinsed my arms off, and began to tie on my surgical mask. I don't know how Meredith knew the exact perfect times to find me when Miranda Bailey would be present, but I was about to be judged on my fairness yet again.

"Dr. Shepherd," she said. I glanced her direction. She was wearing a scrub cap and an autoclaved surgical gown.

"Yes," I asked in a practiced, uninterested tone. I continued to tie up my surgical mask.

"Mr. Levangie has agreed to DBS…" she said evenly.

I turned to her, mask half-tied. Though she couldn't see the lower half of my face, my wide eyes no doubt gave away my surprise.

"…if we do it today," she finished. She stared straight into my eyes with those light blues of hers, trying to convey the meaning of her words. "If he leaves, he won't come back."

I tied the bottom strings to the mask. Mr. Levangie's case was urgent, but I was scheduled to be in a fourteen-hour tumor surgery. Could one of the other neuro attendings cover Edward Levangie for me?

Burke looked up from his ritualistic scrub routine. "Don't worry, Dr. Shepherd," he said, his voice full of smug victory. "It'll be hours before we get to the spine." I was sure he was smiling under that mask. "I'll page you," he half-whined.

I smiled, knowing that although Burke thought he was winning our little battle here, that I'd get the chance to help two patients tremendously today. And that's what being a world-class surgeon was all about.

I ripped the mask off my head.

"Alright then," I said, the closest to words of thanks that Burke would get. I glanced at Bailey. _You can't fault me for her earning the surgery._ I walked towards Meredith standing in the door frame, and looked at her as I sidled past. She kept a straight face, but her eyes were smiling.

"Let's do it."

---

Two hours later, I was probing around Edward Levangie's skull. I needed to locate the precise location where the electrical impulses causing the tremors originated, so as to best place the electrode. For this part of the surgery, the patient needed to be awake so as to assess the effectiveness of the treatment.

"How are you doing, Mr. Levangie?"

"Alright," he croaked.

"Drill bit's charged," one scrub nurse reported.

"Where's Blondie?" he asked. I smiled under my mask. Apparently I wasn't the only one who would have missed Meredith's presence in surgery today.

"I'm right here, can't you see me?" she asked, in the tones of a person trying to be strong for someone else. It was practiced, measured, refined, perfected. This wasn't her first go-round with debilitating disease. She was strong. One more reason to love her.

"I'm shaky, I'm not blind," he retorted. But when you're in someone's brain, you know it when they relax. Meredith was a calming presence for us both. And I needed it. Not that the patient didn't, of course, but Parkinson's patients aren't the easiest to operate on – their constant movement makes it tricky to perform surgery, when one wrong move can end a life. The surgeon needed to make up for it with an especially steady hand. Luckily for Mr. Levangie, I was one of the steadiest in the country.

He pointed a shaky finger at Mer. "Anything goes wrong here, I'm blaming you."

"Okay, in that case, I'll stay where you can see me." It was unbelievable how her way with patients wowed me. It showed me how tender and caring she could be – when she wasn't trying to shoo someone away.

_Focus, Shepherd. You're in surgery._

"Now we just have to drill a hole and try to find the spot that controls motor function," she explained patiently.

"You can't see my brain from there. Aren't you supposed to be learning something?" Edward Levangie was a tough old guy, that was for sure.

` "I'm good right here," she assured him. She held out her steady hands to his shaky ones, and grasped them firmly. She made a connection when the patient needed it most. I was so proud and in awe of her. She would be an excellent surgeon, in and out of the OR. I couldn't wait to see her blossom.

I refocused and took hold of the surgical drill.

"EEG waves look good," a nurse said quietly.

"Okay, Mr. Levangie," I said, whirring the drill once to make sure it was working smoothly. "Just take a couple of deep breaths and focus on the pretty girl." I looked to Meredith one last time – I couldn't afford to focus on the beautiful girl.

I slowly began drilling.

"Okay, this is going to sound really scary," I said, watching him tense. "But just try and relax; you shouldn't feel a thing."

---

Hours later, I was fine-tuning the adjustment of the probe in Mr. Levangie's motor center while a nurse was instructing him in exercises to help me do so. Meredith stood by quietly, the dutiful guardian angel.

"Just keep trying, Mr. Levangie," she encouraged, while slowly flipping her hand to slap her palm and then the back of her hand with the opposite palm. "Mimic my motions. You can do it."

"You're doing great, Mr. Levangie." Meredith's patience was a godsend. "Just a little longer."

But the patient was getting frustrated.

"Aw, dammit!" he cursed through gritted teeth, unable to harness enough control over his hands to successfully replicate the nurse's movements.

My eyes were trained to the computer screen that showed me where the electrode was in his brain.

"Take a breath and try again," the nurse commanded. "One more time, Mr. Levangie."

"The probe is almost in," Meredith prompted him. "You'll know it when we find the right spot." When the electrode was in the proper place, it would block all of the excess impulses and allow the patient almost normal motor control.

Finally, the probe was where I wanted it. I left it there for a few seconds to watch the patient's response. Sure enough, the trembling stopped and Mr. Levangie could easily mimic the nurse in front of him.

"Well, how bout that?" the nurse congratulated.

"There it is," I said offhandedly. Inside, though, I was fit to burst. It always amazed me when we could pull off a miracle cure like this. I wasn't the only one.

"Well I'll be a son of a bitch," Edward said, his voice filled with emotion. He'd be able to walk his daughter down the aisle after all.

Meredith looked at Mr. Levangie, whose eyes were brimming with tears, and then to me. I could see, even under the mask, that she was smiling, but also had a bit of "I told you so" shining in her eyes. If only she knew why I had dismissed her; but she would know soon enough. With Bailey engaged in the tumor surgery, I could tell Meredith once we were out of the OR.

---

After putting Mr. Levangie under general anesthesia to implant the device that would keep blocking out the electrical impulses, we closed up his head and wheeled him down to recovery. Brain surgery was never an easy procedure, but the surgery had gone very well and without complications, and hopefully he'd be able to head home soon.

As soon as we were out of earshot of the scrub nurses, I turned to Meredith, who was pushing the other side of Mr. Levangie's gurney.

"Bailey was on the warpath," I explained. "I was only trying to protect you."

"You trying to protect me is _why_ she's on the warpath," Meredith clarified. Maybe she saw it that way. I didn't want to give her a harder time, though, either, because it was just as bad. I picked Meredith today because she knew the answer before anyone else – it was that simple. She was good. If it had been anyone else, they would've gotten the surgery. Though I probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as much pleasure out of it. "You can't do me favors."

"Oka-"

"You can't ask me to scrub in when I haven't earned it."

"Okay."

"And you can't treat me like crap when I haven't earned that, either." She had a point here. I'd been hard on her earlier, because Bailey was watching.

"Okay." It was apparently the only word I was going to get in edgewise.

"I can take care of myself. I got myself into this mess, and I…"

I looked to her, doing a doubletake. "And you'll get yourself out?" We pushed the gurney towards the elevator.

"I don't…know that yet," she amended. But the doubt in her eyes was clear. I knew the incident two nights ago had affected her, but wasn't staying together to prove them all wrong better than letting it break us?

My pager beeped. That would be my call to go operate on the woman with the tumor. A surgeon's work was never done.

"Don't let me keep you," she said. As much as I wanted it, to avoid speculation, I had to go.

I looked her in the eyes, and softened my face so she could see that I was serious.

"You did great work today," I said, and with a smile I left for the other surgery.

She took a deep breath, and looked at me reluctantly. "Dr. Shepherd?" she called, with an adorable tilt of her head.

I stopped and turned. "Yeah?"

Her eyes moved to the ceiling, not looking me in the eye. "I'm sorry I called you a jackass."

_What was she talking about?_ My eyebrows came together in a frown.

"You didn't."

She smiled that slight Mona Lisa smile at me and shrugged. "I did. Twice." The elevator opened and she pulled the gurney in with her. I snorted and walked away.

I guess I had been in as much hot water as I thought. Probably because I martyred her in front of her resident – that wasn't fair. But at least she apologized. That was a start.

---

In the elevator, two hours later, I was wallowing in doubt.

The woman with the giant tumor had burst one of the large vessels feeding the tumor. She died on the table an hour and a half after I started in on her.

I'd managed to change Mr. Levangie's life. It would have to be enough. Still, I really wanted to save that woman's life. I thought it was possible.

We were her best hope, and she still died. It was just her time, I guess.

And Meredith was probably going to avoid me for the rest of her residency.

It had been a bad day.

I walked out when the elevator got to the first floor and headed out the door sullenly. It was back to the trailer for another meal alone. In all likelihood, it would be one of impossibly many.

But when I looked up, standing between my car and hers in the pouring rain was a very damp Meredith. I walked towards her, just smiling. Because she was smiling. And maybe, this would all be okay.

She looked up at me and bit her lip a little. I smiled, surprised. It was a response I'd never seen in her before – but I liked it.

"I, um…know this place," she said, pulling a bottle of red wine from her handbag, "where there's this amazing view of sunrise over the ferryboats." She grinned.

I nodded and looked at her. "I have a thing for ferryboats."

"I remember," she said, slipping the bottle back into her handbag, eyes still locked in mine. She walked towards my passenger door, and I caught up to her in three steps and opened the door for her. I smiled widely and backed out of the spot.

---

It was even more amazing than the first two times.

Though we'd both had a glass of wine, we were both sober and while the sex was great before, this time it was nothing short of amazing.

I looked into her eyes, and even though I was totally with her, in the moment, I could also see my future in those sparkling baby blues. _Our_ future.

I'd never admit it to her – at least not yet, anyway – for fear of scaring her off. But I knew it was _her_.

The tricky part was being quiet. Stevens was on call but O'Malley was home; asleep, probably, but still there. Bailey already knew and neither of us were eager for Meredith's roommates to find out.

When we finished, we just laid there, and it was the best feeling in the world. I knew that she was starting to feel the same way I did about her. We just basked in the afterglow, in the mutual acceptance and happiness.

"I'm glad you didn't get yourself out of this mess," I turned to her, whispering.

"Me too," she agreed. "Because sleeping alone has never been this much fun."

I pulled her in close and kissed her passionately. She would never know how she made me feel. Even if she fell in love with me, she would never be able to comprehend.

I don't know how long we sat in bed there like that. It must have been a substantial length of time but it seemed way too short. I sighed, and began to sit up.

"You have to leave," she said, not a question, but a statement, resigning herself to the fact.

"You want me to be gone before O'Malley wakes up, right?" I pulled on my jeans.

"I guess you're right," she said mournfully. I felt the same way. I pulled my sweater over my head and gathered my belongings.

"Well, at least let me give you something for the road," she asked, smiling with those bedroom eyes. I walked over to her side of the bed and she pulled my collar so I'd lean in closer, and she kissed me so voluptuously that she almost knocked me off my feet.

"Take care, Meredith," I said as I slowly opened her door.

"Good night, Derek," she called quietly after me.

I snuck down the hall, taking special care in front of O'Malley's door, and slipped out the front door.

Safe in the solitude of the rental car, I sighed deeply. I had the weekend off – it would be at least that long before I'd see Meredith again. I reluctantly started on the drive to the trailer and some decent sleep.

_McIntern: For those of you out there who are curious, this is NOT the time where Derek is seen by George and Izzie. After a lot of deliberation, I decided the timeline wouldn't work. Because in the next episode, Cristina takes a pregnancy test, and since she just had sex with Burke for the first time three days ago, there is NO way she'd have any symptoms of pregnancy yet. I've done a bit of research – the earliest anyone would notice symptoms of pregnancy would be at the implantation stage, 6-8 days after conception. So Derek will just have to sleep over again. Just in case anyone was having a fit with me because of inaccuracy issues. Working on getting Chapter 10 ready before this weekend, maybe even by Thursday!_


	10. Chapter 10: Find A Reason to Believe

_McIntern: I've got another long one for you! And my writer's blog has now moved to Blogspot; check it out under my profile (it's listed as my website or homepage or something). You can comment anonymously for those of you who don't want to commit to yet another username, password, and verification e-mail. =) I rewatched episode 1.7 and decided that although it is when Izzie and George discover Derek and Meredith, it really didn't warrant a whole chapter and could be mentioned in passing. So this is essentially episode 1.8, Save Me. Which means one more chapter until the end of Season 1!_

**Chapter 10 – Find a Reason to Believe**

I got out of Meredith's shower reluctantly; the warm water did such a good job of waking me up so early in the morning that it was hard to part with. Though I could sleep a little bit later now that I didn't have to sneak out of the house, getting up at the same time as an intern brought back horrible memories of sleep deprivation and insecurity. I began to pull on my jeans, and then got out my razor.

But I wouldn't have had it any other way. Now that George and Izzie, Meredith's roommates, knew about me (and had accepted the fact that our relationship wasn't about getting ahead but actual attraction), I had slept at Meredith's every night. Sometimes we had sex, and sometimes we just slept, but it was always wonderful to be lying beside her. Just being near her in any capacity made sparks jump off my skin and leave a warm tingling in their wake.

It was still difficult. Though there were still wild rumors flying about, most of the surgical floor, if not the whole hospital knew we were involved in some capacity. Bailey had softened a bit towards Meredith, but only after she'd done several grueling shifts of grunt work. Izzie had briefly lost respect for her. George wasn't disgusted with Meredith, but had been with me, assuming I'd taken advantage of her. I had assured her I cared about Meredith, knowing O'Malley had a crush on his roommate. George had accepted it, but continued to be protective of Meredith. I didn't mind so much; in addition to not being any sort of real competition, an extra set of eyes on her wouldn't hurt.

The only person I was really still worried about was Richard. As my mentor, he accepted the fact that I had left Addison for cheating on me, but he was close with Addison, too. And technically, we were still married, though it was only a matter of time until I could get her to relent to signing divorce papers. If Addison hadn't yet accepted that our marriage was over, and Richard told her about Meredith, she'd come to Seattle. And I didn't want her there.

After finishing shaving, I stepped out of the bathroom and buttoned up my shirt. Meredith was sitting on the bed, waiting, though she'd finished in the bathroom before me. I gave her a slight, tired smile, and went to pull my sweater over my head. She tracked my progress across the room, quietly amused and smiling. I grabbed my overnight bag and hair mousse, and retreated into the bathroom once more to mousse my still-damp hair and brush my teeth.

I hadn't yet told Meredith about Addison. It wasn't that I didn't want her to know, but it was too soon, and we were too new to each other. By the time I told her, I wanted my wife to be out of the picture, a past chapter of my life. I didn't want to give her the idea that I had anything to go back to, anything to compare to. Because in reality, Addison did not compare to Meredith. The best I could come up with was that Addison was the bread I'd filled up on before I knew what the entrée arrived. The entrée would keep me filled long after I'd finished the meal. The bread, well, I had just eaten that because it was there.

The worst part was that I was no longer angry at Addison. More than anything, I was disappointed that we'd spent so long together when we clearly weren't right for each other. It had been good at the beginning, but once it all became routine we'd drifted apart. And from the beginning, my attraction to Addison was purely physical. Though I had learned to love Addison as a person, I hadn't fallen in love with that.

Meredith had changed the whole game. I had never realized that not only could you love a person's body and mind right away, but their soul and spirit, too. There wasn't a facet to Meredith I wasn't fascinated by. And getting to know her had only strengthened those feelings.

As I was wetting my toothbrush, Meredith snuck into the open door frame of the bathroom.

"So, let's go sleep at your house tonight," she said casually.

Uh oh. I had been hoping to avoid this. It wasn't that I didn't want to bring Meredith to the trailer; I liked the trailer. I was just afraid that she wouldn't. Hell, my sisters hated the _idea_ of the trailer.

"What?" I asked, turning around and trying to stifle my surprise, toothbrush still in mouth.

She was leaning against the frame. "Why are we always sleeping at my house? Do you have one?"

"One what?" I asked, trying to play it off like I couldn't hear her over the water running. I needed time to field a good answer for this one.

"House!" she said, exasperated. "With a closet? With your stuff in it?" She did that head tilt of hers and slowly stepped in. "Your personal stuff?"

I rinsed the toothbrush and packed it back in my overnight bag, trying to avoid the question.

"Do you even have one of those?" she continued to probe.

I put my hand under her chin, and made a face as I walked through the bathroom door. She pouted to let me know she wasn't done yet. She was adorable when she was stubborn. She dutifully followed me downstairs to the kitchen where George and Izzie were.

I looked at the other interns. "Good morning," I called heartily. When I did wake up, I was thoroughly a morning person. There was something so satisfying about a fresh start to a new day, full of promise and opportunity. Especially when the day started with Meredith. I put my overnight bag and a neurosurgical journal I'd been perusing while Meredith was in the shower on the table and Meredith sat down.

"Hey," George said, noticeably less enthusiastically. "You guys want a cupcake?"

"No," I shook my head, as Meredith took one. I'd stopped hitting the junk food since high school – it made me break out like crazy. Ever since, I'd just avoided it out of habit.

"Izzie made them," George said teasingly. Stevens was known for her baking, but that wouldn't be enough to lead me astray after twenty years.

"You know, I like it here," I said cheerfully, though only Meredith knew I was continuing our conversation from earlier. I reached into the cabinet above the oven for my box of Muesli. I had bought the box after the third night at Meredith's – her cereal selection was laughable.

I did like Meredith's house, as much as I had that first night two months ago. Everything looked rustic and cozy; it wasn't a Martha Stewart house by any means. It had a genuine feel to it, like your grandmother's house. It felt lived in. The trailer, well, it was more like a pit stop along the way to a real destination.

"You said so yourself, you like having your things around, sleeping in your own bed…" I got a bowl out of the chipped china cabinet. Meredith just stared at me wearily, her chin in her hand.

"You're like a health nut, aren't ya?" George asked, surveying my progress from his chair. I frowned at him, and opened the fridge to get milk. "You eat Muesli every morning…"

"No I don't," I said, somewhat defensively. Before I even bought the box of Muesli I'd had to endure three mornings of Cap'n Crunch. I could feel my blood sugar levels rising.

"Okay, the Muesli thing," Izzie said, eyeing the box, "you do. Last seven days, at least."

"Oh, come on," I said. Maybe I ate Muesli a lot, but that didn't make me a health nut. Stevens just eyed me skeptically. "I haven't been eating here for a whole week…" I looked to Meredith, who just looked at me blankly. I thought back the last several days. "Have I?" I looked to George, who began downing his glass of milk. I took that as confirmation.

Meredith tilted her head back so as to look at me through hooded eyes. "See?" she said, voice full of an unhappy conviction. "Even they think it's weird."

I looked to George and Izzie, who were trying to innocuously go about their morning. Meredith got up to got the china cabinet and sat back down, smiling at me. Trying to get me to recognize how odd she thought the arrangements were. I held up my spoon as a shrug.

---

We drove in together now. It was just easier, because inevitably Meredith would be too tired to drive home. The first couple of nights, she'd try to argue that she needed to take the Cherokee back home. Against my better judgment, I had, but then every night since I drove her back home. My day was the same length, but less running around; she was safer with me behind the wheel.

Of course, that meant this morning that she could continue her sermon in the car, away from George and Izzie.

"It's not that I would mind it so much," she prattled on as I pulled out of the neighborhood, "so much as that I don't know anything about you. Here you already are in on such an intimate piece of my life, and I don't get anything in return!"

We pulled up to a red light. With the other side still showing green, I leaned over and kissed her while sliding my hand down her cheek. She flushed red as we pulled apart. I smiled – it wasn't often I caught Meredith Grey by surprise.

"No wonder they call you McDreamy," she said wistfully.

"Mc_what?_" I asked as the light blinked green.

"Well, to be honest, Cristina knew about…_us_…before Izzie and George did. Like way before," she explained. I frowned. "It's not like she saw us or something, but she's my friend and she can keep a secret. And, I dunno, one day she called you McDreamy. And when Izzie found out, she started saying it too."

I snorted, but secretly I was grinning. I was _dreamy_, was I? It was certainly a boost for the ego.

"It's not a bad thing at all," she said, stroking the hand I placed on the gear shift with her thumb. "You can be quite dreamy, you know. But not now. Now it's more like McStubborn."

"McDreamy," I scoffed. "So what does that make you?"

She thought for a second, as I pulled into the hospital parking lot. Meredith's house was blissfully close to the hospital, another huge benefit of having our sleepovers there instead of at the trailer. "I'm McCurious, because you won't tell me a damn thing about your life."

"Well, maybe if you're _really_ nice to me, you'll be McEnlightened." I pulled into my good old Head of Neurosurgery space, which had remained unoccupied since that morning last week. I turned the car off and walked around the side to let Meredith out. It spoke volumes about the number of times we'd done this that she simply sat there and waited; the first few times she'd pitched a huge fit about how her mother had fought to be considered equal with her male counterparts and now here I was setting her back decades. It was simply part of the package with me; call me McChivalrous.

She stepped out, and I cradled her face gently, kissing her tenderly. When we broke, she smiled up at me.

"Page me when you're finished," I said to her, as I'd said every day this week.

"Sure thing, McDreamy," she responded, and dashed off towards the hospital door. I opened up the back seat to retrieve my briefcase.

I was going to have to break this McDreamy habit before the entire female surgical staff adopted the nickname.

---

An hour later, I had finally emerged from my office after being ambushed by Dr. Adams with a proposal for a new electroencephalograph. With no surgeries scheduled yet, I decided to pop down to the surgical board to see if there if any of my colleagues had cases I could steal.

Naturally, I spotted Meredith first thing out of the elevator. I jogged to draw level with her.

"Doing anything interesting and neurological today?" I asked her jovially.

She smirked at me. "Are you?"

My face fell. "Are you still on about not knowing me?"

"Yes." She paused. "I was on an epileptic who thinks he's a psychic, but Bailey pulled me off the case to help her with a gunshot wound. Now he's stable, so I'm doing charts."

I smiled at her. "That's too bad."

"Aren't you supposed to be the one volunteering information and I'm supposed to be the enigma. This is so _not_ how this should work," she whined. I laughed a bit, and she glared at me.

"It's just that I hardly know anything about you," she said defensively as we walked down the windowed hallway leading to the catwalk.

"You know I'm from New York, you know I like ferry boats…" I countered. More importantly, she knew a lot of things about me that my _mother_ didn't know, like how much I enjoyed the sunrise in Seattle, and how the last thing I wanted to do was leave her house in the morning, and how distracted I would get when she was in the OR with me. Every time I'd turn to look at her, she'd smile under her mask.

"Enough with the ferry boats!" she said, exasperated. "What about your friends?"

"I'm a surgeon," I said, turning to her. "I don't have friends."

"Everybody has friends," she argued. I looked back to a nurse wearing pink scrubs. For a moment, they were vividly familiar to the salmon pink scrubs Addison favored. Satisfied the nurse was not my estranged wife, I looked back to Meredith. "Who _do_ you hang out with? What do you _do_ on your days off?" I sighed. "These are important questions."

But I couldn't answer them. What about my friends? High school friends had long since vanished. My only lasting college friend, Weiss, was back in New York and blissfully unaware that I'd run off to Seattle, or even that Addison and I were on the rocks. My closest med school friends, Sam and Naomi, lived in Los Angeles with their daughter, and they were so close to Addison that I couldn't confide in either of them. Addison and Mark, obviously, were out of the question. The closest thing I had was Richard – and even he had loyalties to Addison. So who were my friends? Meredith was it, my only connection without any trace of Addison tainting it. But I couldn't tell her that – for one thing, that would involve bringing up Addison and for another, I didn't want to seem that desperate.

Who did I hang out with? The neurosurgeons in my department, sometimes, who talked to me only out of professional duty, not out of personal relationship. What did I do on my days off? Think about Meredith. Go fishing. Read _Clinical Neurosurgery_ and _Neurological Monthly_.

So she could find these things out in her own time.

"Ah, important?" I asked. "For who?"

"We're having sex every night." She lowered her voice as we entered the catwalk. "I think I deserve details!"

"You have more details than most," I told her, and it wasn't far from the truth. Meredith knew more about me, the _real_ me, than Addison or anyone else in New York who'd known me all my life.

She stopped. "See, this is going somewhere _weird_!" I stopped and pivoted back towards her. "I want facts, and until I get them, my pants are staying on." She shook her head slightly.

I stepped towards her, smiling. "Or you could just roll with it. Be flexible, see what happens."

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not flexible," she said crisply.

I chuckled. "Ah, there, I disagree." Meredith knew how to do things in bed Addison would have never dreamed possible. That, of course, was one of many reasons I relished Meredith's company. My pager went off; it was a consult in the pit.

"Mmm, I gotta go."I took a deep breath and surveyed her face. She smirked again, not relenting in her quest for answers. I had to appease her somehow.

"We'll find these things out," I assured her. She tilted her head with a glare that shot daggers. I started on the way to the ER. "That's the fun part, that's the gravy." I started to jog.

"That's what I'm talking about," she called after me. "I don't want to be your gravy!"

_But if you knew the truth, right now, while this is so new, you'd run. Stay, get to know me, and when you're ready, when the time is right, I'll tell you._ I didn't want to scare Meredith off, it was that simple.

When I reached the ER, a nurse swiftly handed me the chart for the patient in question.

"Tommy Walker, age 34, sustained a fall while rock climbing," she rattled off. "He sustained blunt trauma to the neck and spine – they collared him and had him on a back board in the field. ER docs ordered a trauma panel but called for a neuro consult to be safe. So far he doesn't have any complaints."

I nodded my thanks to the nurse and headed to curtain 4.

"Hello, Mr. Walker, my name is Dr. Shepherd and I'm here for your neurological consult."

"Hey," the man said in a strained voice.

I checked both pupils with my penlight for reactivity. Both pupils responded quickly and equally, ruling out a concussion.

"You don't seem to have a concussion, which is good news," I assured him. "Can you follow the light with your eyes?" I moved the penlight back and forth, and his pupils followed suit. His eyes could track and follow movement. I grabbed a roller and ran it up and down his calf.

"Okay, Mr. Walker," I said brightly, "does that hurt?"

"I can't feel anything until you get to my thigh," he reported, quickly and worriedly.

"Try wiggling your toes." I looked to his feet. There was no movement.

"Are they moving?" he asked, his eyes looking frantically from side to side, the mark of a man worrying about what he cannot see.

"No," I said reluctantly. I looked to his spinal films

"Damn," he breathed. "I could about ten minutes ago." Undoubtedly the EMTs who found him in the field had done a brief neurological exam, but things could change in the time following a trauma, when the adrenaline began to fade. His injuries could be more extensive than it had seemed immediately following the impact.

"Well your spine x-rays look clear," I said, trying to calm him. That was always good news. "You fell rock climbing?"

"In Snohomish, it was a small drop. I was belayed. My wife and boys are on the way," he said quietly. "What's wrong with me, anyway?"

I slipped my hands under Tommy's feet. "Hold your legs up," I requested. I let my hands drop a few times. His legs were dead weight, and somehow the message was not getting from his brain to the muscles in his legs. He was paralyzed. I looked down, thinking.

"Should I be scared now?" the patient asked.

"Just try and relax," I said quietly. There was no use in the patient getting worked up about his paralysis; it might make the condition worse. That said, the symptoms were troublesome. We would have to see what was going on inside of Mr. Walker.

I called for a nurse. "I need a stat MRI; send an intern." I thought to Bailey's staff – it was common knowledge that she was Richard's favorite student and that he gave her the most promising interns. Suddenly, I remembered which of Bailey's interns were free. "Make it Meredith Grey." Though Bailey had been making her jump through hoops as a result of her knowledge of our relationship, this was a simple matter of Meredith being at the right place at the right time.

As the nurse went to call radiology to prepare them for Tommy Walker's arrival, I turned back to the patient.

"We're going to figure this out, Mr. Walker," I assured the patient. "I'm sending up another doctor, Dr. Grey, and she's going to escort you to the MRI. We'll have your family notified when they get here."

"Thanks, Doc," he called hoarsely. I headed out of the ER to try and brainstorm what might cause paralysis without showing up on an x-ray.

---

An hour later, while I was in my office poring over an article by some crack head doctor in Milwaukee trying to tout the modern relevance of the lobotomy, Meredith paged me down to MRI to have a look at Mr. Walker's results.

I headed down to radiology to get into the technician's booth, where the techs were all assisting Tommy out of the machine. Meredith got up from the chair in front of the monitors, poring over the scans.

"I can't find anything obvious," she said as a prelude. "No matter how many ways I look at them."

I sat down and looked intently. The spinal scans were clean – there weren't even any shadows or blotches. Nothing that could the paralysis could be attributed to. I clicked through the different views, and still nothing leapt out at me. Meredith leaned over me.

"See?" she said quietly. "His films are clear. There's no reason I can see for his creeping paralysis."

"It's just so surprising," I said, eyes not leaving the monitors, searching for a tiny blip that could explain the symptom. I found nothing. "I expected an intrusion into the spinal space, or a bony spur in the nucleus pulposus." I turned my attention to the films one more time.

"Well, you were wrong," Meredith said, voice full of self-righteousness. "You don't always get what you expect, do you?"

I turned my head, mouth gaping in disbelief. She was really bent out of shape about this! If I didn't find her so stunningly attractive that comment would have gotten her into trouble.

"_What_ is your problem?" I asked indignantly.

"Give me something to go on – anything!" I looked back at her, amused, and then flipped back to the chart. "What are your grandparents' names?"

I didn't look at her. "I don't have grandparents." It was kind of true – they were all dead. One of heart disease, one in a car accident before I was born, one to cancer, and one of old age.

"Where'd you grow up?" she continued, undeterred. "What's your favorite flavor of ice cream? Where'd you spend your summer vacations?"

"Lighten up – it'll be good for your blood pressure," I rose to leave.

"Oh, don't you tell me to lighten up," she snarled as I made my way down the hallway. I looked back. "I'll lighten up when I…feel light!"

I chuckled to myself, but I could feel my insides warming. She cared enough that she wanted to know more about me. On the one hand, this is what I had been working towards from the beginning, since she'd almost broken me when she had kicked me out of her house that morning without fanfare. On the other hand, what Meredith didn't know wouldn't hurt her. And the truth about Addison, right now, would most certainly hurt her. I was going to have to keep a few tricks up my sleeve.

---

When Mr. Walker had settled in back at his bed in the ER, I came down to check him and paged Meredith. His wife had arrived, and I hoped she would be more comfort to him than an additional stressor. It went about 50-50 when it came to spouses.

"Any changes, Mr. Walker?" I asked carefully.

"I can't move my legs at all now!" he exclaimed, frightened, as Meredith came through the curtain.

"He said he was moving his legs when he came in," Mrs. Walker explained. I glanced down, ashamed of the fact that I had no diagnosis, because I knew the next question well. "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know," I said, matter-of-factly. The last person I'd been so frank with, Katie Bryce's father, had not taken the news well at all. I knew it was hard for patients when I couldn't give them a diagnosis, but I hadn't given up yet, far from it. "The paralysis is moving very quickly, and there was nothing in the MRI to explain it." I looked Mrs. Walker in the eye, pleading with her. _Give me more time, I can figure this out_. _Don't worry him yet._

"Has Tommy been under any stress lately?" Meredith asked the patient's wife. What was she doing?

"The only thing causing me any stress is being in here and not being able to move," Tommy said wearily, sitting up a little. Since the x-rays and MRI had shown his c-spine to be clear, the nurses had removed his neck brace to relieve some discomfort.

"Dr. Grey," I said, voice clipped. My eyes motioned outside of the patient's area. We took a few steps outside.

I folded my arms and tilted my chin towards her slightly, inviting her to speak.

"Emotional trauma can be converted into something physical, right?" she asked, authoritative and professional.

"This is possible," I acknowledged, nodding.

"Like hysterical numbness or paralysis," she supplemented. I took a deep breath and considered the possibility. "Maybe there is no physiological reason, and he's just having a conversion reaction."

"You think it's psychosomatic?" I asked. It could certainly be a possibility, but as a surgeon I wanted to go to that diagnosis only as a last resort, mainly because I could not fix conversion disorder. And there were other conditions, physical conditions that could go virtually undetected on a standard MRI that I could fix, and would have to fix, surgically. I wasn't ready to go the conversion disorder route yet.

Suddenly, a patient curtain was drawn back, and a slightly wild-looking man appeared. A flustered Dr. Stevens was right behind him.

"It is not in your head, man," he said defensively, addressing Mr. Walker. "I believe you."

The Walkers shared a look of disbelief, while Stevens tried to rein in her patient.

"Mr. Duff, please," she said, her voice short. She drew the curtain back around him.

I frowned, as a look of embarrassment fell over Meredith's face.

"Who was that?" I asked, puzzled. And more importantly, what did he have to do with my patient?

"Psych sent him down, he has visions," she said bluntly, her eyes refusing to meet mine. That must have been the case she was moved from.

"Is that it? Am I crazy?" Mr. Walker asked, alarmed.

I looked from the patient, to Meredith, back to him again. This was extremely poor timing, considering I wasn't willing to consider conversion disorder as a candidate yet.

"No, no!" I said, trying to calm Mr. Walker. Additional stress would not help the paralysis. "I'm going to order a higher-level MRI." I placed my hand on his shoulder, and looked him in the eye. "We're going to figure this out." I patted his shoulder and went to head back to my office.

I looked to Meredith as I passed. _Order the MRI, and do as I say._

---

After I had finished up my lunch, Meredith paged me back to the ER.

"MRI's been backed up," Meredith explained. "They won't be able to fit him in for another hour yet."

"Damn," I cursed under my breath. We were on the clock here.

"Doc!" Mr. Walker cried. Meredith and I both whipped around. "Doc, my hands can't move!"

I put my hand next to the patient's left hand. "Squeeze my fingers," I prompted, frowning. Surely the paralysis couldn't be moving so quickly?

"I can't," he said breathlessly. I moved over to his right.

"How about here, no?" He shook his head, afraid to voice his fears.

"Let me know if you feel this," I said, withdrawing a sterile hypodermic from my breast pocket. I quickly jabbed it into the web of his right thumb, and he shook his head again, gasping. I moved to the left hand when Mrs. Walker hurried back to his curtain.

"Okay, nothing on this side?" I asked. The husband and wife both looked at each other, having a silent conversation of fear. "Alright, I'll be right back."

"Nurse!" I called. One turned to address me. "Cancel the second MRI. Call down and prep OR, stat." I headed back to the counter and looked to Meredith. She eyed me with disbelief.

"You're operating?" she asked incredulously. I nodded gravely.

"On what? If there was something to fix, wouldn't we have seen it?"

"Maybe the MRI missed a clot somewhere in his upper spine," I said, noting the progression on Mr. Walker's chart. I looked to her, trying to instill some confidence. "I'm going to cut him open. I'm going in."

"But what if you're wrong?" she questioned. "Won't unnecessary spinal surgery do more damage?" She kept her voice low in case there were any raving psych cases still roaming about.

"If we wait any longer and this thing expands into his brain stem, we'll have a paralyzed man who can't breathe." I looked into her sky blue, gorgeous eyes. "I'm trusting my instincts. Sometimes, you have to take a chance to save a life."

It probably hadn't been the best idea to make it personal like that. But in this case, what held true in our relationship also held true in medicine – taking a chance could pay off in ways you'd never believe.

---

The team moved quickly, and in almost no time at all, Mr. Walker had signed the consent form, been prepped for surgery, and put under anesthesia.

I stood above Mr. Walker's back. "We've gotta save this cord," I said, admiring the musculature of the man who'd met his downfall facing craggy rock faces. "This guy is built like the Rock of Gibraltar." No matter how much time I made for the gym on my days off, I could never build the kind of muscle tone Tommy Walker possessed. I looked to Meredith.

"You want me to start?" she asked tentatively. This afternoon, disbelief colored every phrase she spoke. This was why new doctors had to spend a year as an intern before practicing medicine. They did everything by the book, with no room for unusual presentation or mystery. Seasoned doctors knew that in order to be successful, you had to have experience to temper that knowledge and think outside of the symptoms.

"No, I'm going to cut here, from the base of the neck to the ribcage," I said, drawing a line with the scalpel down the spine to the points I had indicated. "I want you to hit the bleeders." I began to open up the area.

She looked at me, and very quietly said, "I still don't think we should be doing this."

"This guy has a spinal hematoma…" I pointed out. While not certain, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Experience would point to it.

"We don't know that," she argued.

"…which left untreated is almost always fatal," I finished.

"You're cutting blind," she challenged, watching my hands. "Whatever happened to being practical?"

I shook away my minor annoyance towards her – interns were supposed to be inquisitive. This is how they learned that medicine wasn't always looking at problems that show up on scans. I dabbed at the fluids restricting my view of the spine. "I need to see more here. Retractor?"

The nurse handed me another retractor, and I inserted it to widen the viewing space of the spine.

"Wow," she said, gazing at the spinal cord and vertebrae. I looked up, she was mesmerized. I realized this was probably her first look at a live spine. "The spine…"

"There is no 'wow' in practical," I said, just as authoritatively as she had been to me. She surveyed me as I began to explore the incision.

After finding nothing in the preliminary examination, Meredith and I used delicate spinal probes to explore the area around the spinal space to search for the clot. Meredith was still skeptical as to whether or not there was actually a clot to find, but I had seen enough cases like this during my residency that I was almost certain this case would turn out similarly. Granted, I had never been the one leading the search for the invisible clot; I had been in Meredith's scrubs, looking where the attending directed.

"The thoracic laminae – nothing," Meredith reported, scouting out the areas I directed her to. She had searched quite a few places before. She was quiet for a moment, and then in a tentative voice, "I think I see the dura pulsating here."

I glanced where she looked. I saw nothing. A rookie mistake – Meredith was trying to create what she wanted to see in Mr. Walker's back.

"No, it's not," I told her. "Keep looking." I knew that since the clot has not shown up on the scans, that it would be hard to find. Meredith didn't.

"We've been at this for four hours," Mer said carefully. "Maybe he just injured his spinal cord and there's nothing to fix."

"Grey," I began, the irritation laced through my voice as I probed around the thoracic vertebrae. "When you read your books, make sure you reference them correctly. Progressive paralysis implies a pressure or lesion." I looked up at her, daring her to question me again. I was trying hard to keep my composure but she was clearly letting her personal relationship with me color her speech towards me. Any other intern would have been much more respectful. I had spent seven years in a neurosurgical residency, two in a neurology fellowship, and three in private practice - textbooks did not explain everything I saw in real life.

"My books are what got me here," she retorted. I was ready to reprimand her when everything in Mr. Walker's spine began to tense.

The monitors began to go off.

"Pressure's up to 180 over 111," one of my favorite nurses, Paul, reported. "Pulse is in the forties."

"What is it?" Meredith asked urgently.

"I'm pushing seventy milligrams of diazoxide," Paul said, predicting my moves before I could speak them. That's what I loved about Paul – he'd been in this OR so many times he knew how I operated. Unlike Meredith.

"Okay," I said, thanking Paul for his quick work. I looked to Meredith. "Autonomic dysreflexia." Some stimulus had occurred under the clot that was narrowing his vessels and raising his blood pressure. And unless we found the clot, it wouldn't stop.

"Damage to the sympathetic nervous system?" she answered.

"BP and the heart rate or unstable," I said, irrigating the area.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?" she asked quietly.

"We've got to find the clot," I told her. Though not the reaction I'd hoped for, this did tell me I was headed in the right direction with my diagnosis.

"You know, I can see the cord below the dura," Meredith said, a little nervous but holding her own. "Is he going to stroke out?"

"Focus, Grey," I said, trying to calm her down. "We're gonna find the clot, it's there. Uh, cleanup, please," I directed the nurses. I looked at the screen behind Meredith, trying to see if there was anything different from that angle.

"BP's still up," Paul jumped in. "Heart rate's at 44."

"Get on those bleeders," I told Meredith. With a higher blood pressure, we had to control the bleeding more efficiently, or Mr. Walker would lose blood too quickly. She did as was told, and took a deep, rattling breath.

I looked into her eyes. "Keep looking, Dr. Grey."

We shared a look, and she resignedly turned her eyes back to the patient's spine.

We prodded around more for several minutes. I was lost in the search.

"Irrigation and suction, have it ready," I heard Paul directing. Good man. Easier for me to find this clot; it was very well-hidden.

"Right away," another nurse responded.

And suddenly, there it was! A small clot, but it was strategically located. A clot so small would have to be located in precisely the right place to cause so much damage – and of course it was. I furrowed my brow.

"What is it?" Meredith inquired.

"See for yourself," I said, successfully keeping the smugness out of my voice. "Second thoracic vertebrae."

She looked for a few seconds.

"Oh my God," she said, quietly astounded. "I see it, it really is there."

"Of course it is!" I said jovially. My instincts had proved spot on. "Let's suction and pack this baby, shall we?"

One of the nurses began suction, and we began to remove Mr. Walker's clot.

---

A half an hour later, Mr. Walker was stitched back up and taken to recovery. We went to scrub out.

"You were right," Meredith conceded, with no anger. "Is he gonna be okay?"

"I think so," I said. We'd gotten the clot out without doing too much damage, and once it was gone his blood pressure had evened out.

"But you don't know that," she said warily.

"I know we stopped the paralysis from advancing," I pointed out. We had done the best that we could without machinery to help us locate and diagnose the clot.

"But you don't know if the paralysis he has will be permanent," she replied.

"No," I relented. Why did she have to push so hard?

She sighed. "You keep taking everything on faith," she asked sincerely. "How do you know what's real and what's not?"

Though it applied to the Walker case, I knew we weren't talking about the patient anymore.

"You just do," I said, washing my arms. She stared at me, quietly disbelieving. I smiled back. "You know, some people would call this a relationship." She simply stared at me again, not registering my words. "The kind where you exchange keys, leave your toothbrush over." Though we'd only been seeing each other for two weeks, we had definite chemistry, and I'd been courting her for two months now. And I was sure that she was the only person I wanted in my life, indefinitely.

She somehow regained power of speech. "Who? Who would call it that?" she said sarcastically.

"Me," I replied, short and sweet, emphasizing the word. "I would." We leaned against the sink, drying our hands. I looked at her; she just smiled like I was cracking a bad joke. Maybe, to her, I was.

She nodded her head. "And I'm supposed to believe you?"

"Uh huh," I said with a Cheshire grin.

She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. "Show me something!" I looked at her and sighed. "Give me a reason to believe." She threw down a challenge. I'd get my relationship if I gave her a piece of truth to hold on to. It wasn't an unfair trade, really. I nodded, and looked at her, grabbing Mr. Walker's chart. I smiled and walked away. I would give her a reason to believe. It was the least I could do for a gift I wanted so badly – what was a little bit about myself in comparison to such utter happiness?

---

As I waited for Meredith to finish up checking on Mr. Walker and change, I stopped by the surgical attendings' lounge. I rarely ever ventured there (one of the perks of having an office) but decided to go grab a cup of coffee. I found Jim Nelson, an unassuming neurosurgeon who'd held interim Head of Neurosurgery while I was in New York, sitting in a chair, rubbing his temples. I got a cup of coffee and sat at the table across from him.

"Rough surgery, Jim?" I asked.

"I just operated on that obnoxious psychic," he moaned. "What a piece of work!"

"Yeah," I chuckled. "He tried to rile up my spinal clot guy. So is he still a psychic?"

"Hell if I know," he said, looking up. "I mean, the seizures are fixed, but…" He trailed off.

"Don't tell me he got you," I teased.

"Well," Nelson started. "He knew something about me that I've never told anybody…Dr. Shepherd, I'm the one who parked in your spot. I just…I've worked here for 9 years…I…sorry." He bowed his head in shame.

I smiled. "Jim?"

He looked up, expectant. I'm sure he thought he'd be fired or something.

"Call me Derek," I said, offering my right hand.

He hesitantly took it, and then shook it heartily. "Sorry, Derek."

Just then, my eye caught sight of Meredith, hovering outside the door frame. She didn't want Jim to see that she was waiting for me, but wanted me to know she was there.

"Water under the bridge," I said breezily, and stood up to leave.

I walked out, and Meredith appeared from the shadows. We were right in front of the elevator, and it opened and we stepped right on. No one else was on it. We stepped inside, and after the doors closed, I fished for her hand. She clenched a fist for a moment, but then relaxed her hand so it fell limp. I grasped it, and felt her fingers close around mine and gently squeeze. A spark shot up my hand, and I smiled at her. She smiled back.

We held hands for the entire elevator ride. When the doors opened again, she slid it back out. I sighed. We certainly didn't want to draw attention to our relationship to the hospital, but it had been so _easy_ for a moment.

Before we got off again, I whispered into her ear, "We're not going back to your house tonight."

We walked back out towards the car, where it was drizzling. I went to open the door from her, when she turned to speak to me for the first time since after the surgery.

"Where _are_ we going?" she asked, with that slight smile of hers.

I looked at her, and then gave her a devilish grin. "Trust me." I said, as she lowered herself into the car.

She was silent for the entire forty-minute car ride, but held laced her fingers between mine on the hand on the gear shift. It was so effortlessly easy, but I couldn't stop smiling. It was what I'd wanted for coming two months now. And it was better than I'd imagined.

We finally pulled up the dirt road that led to the trailer. I had let her out of the car, and she stood and looked around, though it was too hard to discern anything in the dark. I locked the car and started heading towards the trailer. She came level with me.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"I'm gonna tell you," I teased, wagging my finger as my mother used to do. I rubbed my hands together. "All right. My mother's maiden name – Maloney. I have four sisters. I have – um, _nine_ nieces." I quickly rattled them off in my head to check – Casey, Rebecca, Sarah, Katy, Bethany, Lindsey, Jenna, Erica, Brooke. Yeah, nine. "Five nephews." She smiled widely, a rarity. "I like coffee ice cream, single-malt scotch, occasionally a good cigar. I like to fly-fish. And I cheat when I do the crossword puzzle on Sunday. And I never dance in public." I took a deep breath, and sighed. "Um, favorite novel – _The Sun Also Rises_. Favorite band – The Clash. Favorite color is blue. I don't like light blue – indigo. The scar over here on my forehead," I touched it, "that's why I don't ride motorcycles anymore. And I live in that trailer." I clicked the light on, and she looked. She looked at me, open-mouthed, and I thought, _this is it. The trailer is the last straw. _I had to save myself.

"All this land is mine, and I have no idea what I'm gonna do with it." I sighed. "So that's it. That's all you've earned for now. The rest you're just…just gonna have to take on faith." I smiled and nodded. _Please_, I begged silently. _There are some things you're better off not knowing_.

The look on her face was either unreadable, or I didn't want to know what it said. She walked, wordlessly, towards the trailer, surveying it. I watched helplessly, hoping I hadn't destroyed what I'd worked so hard to build.

She turned back, and to my surprise she was beaming, and not in the way that leads to that heartbreaking laugh that would tear my life apart, either. The kind that said _I like what I see. This is okay with me._ My eyebrows rose, and I still watched, cautiously. And then, that beautiful woman held out her hand to me. I smiled, walked towards her, and took her hand. We walked towards the trailer, hand in hand, and it felt comfortable and right, like it's where we should have been all along.

_McIntern: This chapter was fun to write (when I wasn't trying to think like a neurosurgeon haha =P). Meredith is finally opening herself up to Derek and embracing their relationship – in her own way. It just breaks my heart though, because we all know what happens next. =( Coming season 2, I'm going to be taking the helm a lot more often, because it's about to get crazy up in here!_


	11. Chapter 11: The Bitch is Back

_McIntern: I feel the need to explain the title – I don't hate Addison, really I don't. I think when she explains the situation to her patient in 2.1 she handles the whole thing pretty classily. I feel bad because she's deluded into thinking that she and Derek can still make it work, when she really doesn't know how she doesn't stand a chance against Meredith. I can't help but feel for her. But this is Derek's story, and right now he's about ready to wring Addison's neck. It's shorter than Chapter 10, but that was the longest chapter to date so you'll have that. I'm just impressed I got it together this quickly – you can thank the snow in the Mid-Atlantic! Remember to check out the blog – it's in my profile under website. Thanks!_

**Chapter 11 – The Bitch is Back**

I woke up to the tinny ringing of Meredith's cell phone. At 6 AM. Wonderful. I groaned and turned over, trying to grasp the last few moments of sleep.

We were back at Meredith's house after going back to the trailer for a couple of days. To my complete surprise, Meredith loved the trailer.

"It's cozy," she said, lying in my arms, naked, that first morning. "And there are no roommates."

It was a better situation that sleeping at Meredith's every night, except for one problem – it took me forty minutes to get to work.

And since Meredith had to get to the hospital early each morning, that meant I had to wake up even earlier to drive her there. So I'd gotten her to agree that we'd only spend time at the trailer when we had the following day off (usually I could rearrange my schedule to be off on the rare day she was). So we were back at Meredith's house.

She spoke in that airy whisper of hers, muttering words that were incomprehensible in my semiconscious state. I made a concerted effort to wake up.

"I have to go," she said, and hurriedly hung up. I looked up at her and the impossibly bright sun, groaned, and reached over to the nightstand for my watch.

"Oh my God," I said, croaking through my drowsiness. "Who is calling you at this hour?"

"It's a wrong number," she assured me with a false nonchalance. But I wasn't going to argue with her. Just as I held some things from Meredith, she might hold some from me. There would be plenty of time for the big reveal later.

Since Meredith had already been in and out of the shower, and gotten dressed, she popped out into the hallway while I began the actual process of getting up. After several seconds of debating the merits of going right back to sleep, I sat up, pulled on a pair of khakis, and a shirt.

Out in the hallway, Izzie was excitedly telling Meredith something. Stevens was way too perky in the morning – I liked mornings, but not because they were supposed to be high-energy. I scooped the shirt and sidled into the door frame.

"Sounds like fun out here," I commented as Izzie went down the hall. In the pocket of my khakis, my Blackberry began ringing. I dug it out, and looked at the number.

_Addison_.

It had been two months and she wisely hadn't said a word to me. And now, _here_, she was going to try to reconcile? Or did she finally decide that divorce was the only option?

Either way, this was not the time or place to discuss this with her. I pocketed the phone.

"Aren't you going to get that?" Meredith asked. "It might be the hospital."

"It's not," I said, leaving it at that. I buttoned up my shirt. "Breakfast?"

Meredith hung back for a bit, skeptical, but then slowly followed, padding her way down the hallway.

---

To Meredith's credit, she did not ask about the mystery caller throughout breakfast. I, in turn, didn't push about hers. We took separate cars today, since I needed to stop by the mechanic on my way to the hospital to inquire about the health of the War Machine. Apparently in the two weeks since placing the order for the parts, they still hadn't shipped from the warehouse in Fairfax. After some angry words, I was assured that the holding fees to keep the car on the lot until the repairs could be made would be waived.

When I arrived at the hospital, Meredith was already scrubbing in on Richard's colon resection. I decided to check on a few of my post-op patients from the day before and record their post-op notes on their charts while in the gallery of Meredith's surgery. I'd never gotten to see her in a surgery that I wasn't also scrubbed in on. Though she was only holding the retractor, she had a sharp mind and I couldn't wait to see how she fared against Richard's rapid-fire quizzes.

"More suture please," I heard Richard say in an icy tone. "And what's with these damn lights in here?"

I frowned, looking up from my charts. The Richard Webber I knew was never a primadonna in the operating room – to hear him making such demands was uncharacteristic.

And then, several minutes later, I heard a retractor clang to the ground. Richard had batted it out of the nurse's hand. I watched him carefully.

"Sorry, doctor," the nurse humbly apologized.

"It wasn't you," the Chief corrected. He took a deep sigh, and blinked hard. "Dr. Bailey, you can finish this."

Bailey looked, wide-eyed, at him while he shrugged out of his gown, and then stammered words of thanks.

I'd seen that hard blink before, in patients who were having blurry vision and other problems seeing. Sometimes the optic nerve was involved. I frowned, thinking, and then looked to Meredith, who was gazing at me with a puzzled look in her eye. Something was going on with Richard's vision – that's why he couldn't grasp the retractor the nurse held out for him. It might have caused him to mess up his sutures. I had to go and find him.

---

Bailey did a marvelous job finishing, and Meredith was given the chance to do some sutures on the close. They were tight, neat, and even – perfect. Bailey, who was not liberal with compliments, commended her on the stitches and sent her out to take the patient to recovery. I managed to squeeze in a brief congratulatory kiss on the top of her head as she pushed the gurney by (she beamed at me), and then I headed up to Richard's office to talk.

I knocked briefly and then entered. Richard looked up, hunched over his desk, and sat back into his desk chair.

"You dropped a retractor," I said softly.

"Fine," he said, holding a hand up in defeat. I took a few steps closer, concerned. "A few weeks ago, I was operating and the vision in my right eye became blurry. After a few hours, it was fine. It's come back again."

"Did you have it checked out?"

"Examination was normal," he said, resigned. "My ophthalmologist says I'm just getting older. But you know what a decline in my visual acuity could mean."

"I'll set up some tests," I told him, not speaking the words both of us were too afraid to touch. _Optic nerve tumor_.

"Shep," he said gravely, using his old nickname for me. "You know how the rumor mill runs around here. Let's just keep this to ourselves."

"Absolutely," I said, nodding with a slight smile. "Yeah." I saw myself out. Richard knew I just wanted to help, but if any of the more opportunistic attendings (like Burke, who Richard had set me against for future Chief) heard about this weakness, he could be ousted. I wanted the job, but not with Richard's blood on my hands.

---

After a simple tumor resection and a quick lunch, I went to tell Richard that we were ready for his MRI, but his assistant Patricia pulled him aside to brief him on another matter, so I fell back.

When I found him again a half hour later, he was lecturing the entire surgical staff on how to prevent the spread of syphilis. I thanked every god in the universe that Meredith and I didn't have to worry about the safe sex demonstration Patricia was leading. Richard handed the floor to her and stepped to the side of the room. I made my way over to his side.

"We should try to get down to do the MRI now," I said quietly amidst the giggles of the floor nurses.

"This isn't really a good time," he said in no direction in particular.

"If you want to do this without anyone else knowing," I said conspiratorially, "you should do it now." I slipped through the throng out of the door to the meeting room, with Richard following at a safe distance.

A half an hour later, we were locked in the viewing room, poring over Richard's MRI.

"You see that right there?" I indicated a small dot near the right optic nerve. Richard hummed his acknowledgement. "It's a tumor, and it's pressing against your optic nerve."

"Is it operable?"

"Oh, definitely," I declared. It was a complicated tumor, but one I'd removed hundreds of times in my private practice back in New York. We both sighed. "But, you know, it does have its risks."

"You mean I could lose my sight," he said; a statement, not a question. He looked at me, arms folded, guarding against bad news. "Just what I need; a syphilis outbreak and a tumor."

"Well, it's probably unrelated," I joked, trying to lighten the mood. He was not amused.

"All right, Derek," he said, sighing and dropping his shoulders. "Let's see how good you really are."

I nodded, accepting the challenge. Though the stakes were higher on this case, I'd performed more difficult surgeries without breaking a sweat. "All right, I'll put a team together."

"My people only," he stipulated. "And I still want this kept under wraps. The vultures will be circling soon enough."

"Am I one of the vultures?" I needled.

"Why did you think I wanted to keep an eye on you?" he said, in good humor. "Get going; we're doing this tonight."

"Right," I said, flicking off the light and taking the scan down. I went to dial down for an OR but just as Richard opened the door to leave, Meredith popped in. She looked at me, eyes bright, but then suddenly looked to the Chief, paralyzed. Richard looked her up and down, and then came out. When he left, Meredith came in and looked at me, expectantly. I glanced over to her and put the phone down.

"You paged," she said by way of explanation.

"Yeah," I said, smiling at the sight of her. The way this girl could make me melt was incredible. "I need you to help me out on something for the Chief. Can you keep a secret?"

A sly smile overtook her face. "Better than you think."

"Great." I stepped towards her and pulled the door closed. Then, I snaked an arm around her and pulled her close, kissing her tenderly. Her lips molded against mine, teeth opening slightly with just enough room for me to slide my tongue in between…

"No!" she retracted from the kiss, but didn't pull out of my embrace. "Not at work! Now, focus, what did you need me for?"

I snapped back to my senses – it wasn't my fault; her scent was intoxicating and I could have sworn her eyes were begging for it. She was _so_ taking advantage of me. "Uh, the Chief has an optic nerve tumor and I need to assemble a team to operate. I need the best, and you're it. Are you in?"

"Of course," she said, stroking the hand I had wrapped around her chest gently with her index finger. Then she gently unraveled my arm and turned to face me. "What do you need first?"

I deflated a bit when she detached from me; I knew it was because we were at work and she didn't want to cause a scene, that it had nothing to do with how she felt about me, but I felt rejected nonetheless.

"I need you to recruit Bailey," I directed. "Get Paul and all of the veteran scrub nurses together. We begin at 7 PM."

"Yes, Dr. Shepherd," she said quietly. She snuck up and pecked me on the lips, and then turned to start assembling my surgical team. When I turned again to the phone to secure an OR, I couldn't keep the smile from stealing over my face.

---

I finished up setting up precautions that would keep unauthorized personnel well away from OR 4 during the surgery. The room was officially closed for maintenance. The only people who knew were those I had drafted for my team, and the Head of Nursing, a sassy older woman named Lily who happened to not only like my hair, but could keep secrets like a steel trap. Technically, I had done the surgery many times, but it had just sunken in how much power I held in my hands. I could break Richard's career with one twitch of my finger. I wouldn't let it rattle me, but I was definitely on edge.

I walked through the lobby, trying to find Meredith, when I saw her and Bailey on the catwalk. I quickly scaled the stairs and leaned in on the railing.

"How goes our special super secret silent sunset surgery?" I asked, as Meredith and Bailey scoffed, shook their heads, and rolled their eyes. Bailey gave me a skeptical glare and I raised my eyebrows. "I've been practicing that."

"You have too much time on your hands," Bailey said dismissively. She turned to Meredith. "Uh, tell the Chief I'm in; just let me know where and when."

"Okay," Meredith confirmed with the senior resident. Bailey gave me a final disapproving look and went downstairs.

I held my hand out, gesturing to her in disbelief and snickered. Meredith giggled at me. We both sighed.

"Are you nervous?" she asked as we walked, stride for stride.

"It's a complicated surgery," I admitted. "Make one mistake and I end a fellow surgeon's career; my mentor's career." I turned to face her. "Oh no, I'm not nervous." I grimaced as I surveyed the lobby full of doctors who did not have such responsibility weighing on their shoulders.

"So, just for the record," Meredith inquired, trying to be casual. "You'd tell me if I needed to get tested?"

I gaped at her in dismay. "You think I have syphilis?" I whispered. I turned away. "God…"

"No, I don't," she said, leaning on the rail behind me. "It's just – we never made any rules or anything…we never said we had rules, and I wouldn't hold it against you if…"

I leaned towards her, amazed that she still couldn't see how crazy about her I was. _Play it cool, Shep._ "When would I have time to go out and get syphilis?" I shook my head. "You're a handful enough as it is, and besides, we're like practically…a condom ad."

She smiled; she liked the fact that we were exclusive. "But no more glow-in-the-dark ones!" she ribbed, playfully.

"You see? There's nothing to worry about." I beamed at her. "Maybe we should, you know, make some rules I mean."

"We should," she agreed.

"Okay," I confirmed, and winced inside. There had to be a way to make talking about a relationship less awkward – it was like the elephant in the room.

"Okay." She coyly walked away.

"Just for the record?" I began as she turned around.

"Uh huh," she prompted.

"I _like_ the glow-in-the-dark ones."

She laughed at me. "I bet you do." She turned the corner and was gone.

My phone began ringing again. In everything I'd gotten caught up in here today, I'd forgotten about the call from Addison this morning. Sure enough, _ADDISON_ was blinking on the screen. I could have gone to my office to answer it, but I had an important surgery to prepare for. I hit 'Ignore' and shoved it back into my scrub pocket and frowned. What could she possibly want to talk about? Wasn't the profound silence we'd shared over the last sixty days enough of a hint for her?

---

The resection couldn't have gone any smoother. The tumor came out smoothly, and I had retrieved all of it. But we weren't out of the woods yet – though I'd been careful, there was always the chance I had damaged the optic nerve, and if I had, Richard would face lifelong blindness.

After I'd scrubbed out, Lily and I had collaborated with the janitor to close off the sections of the floor surrounding OR 4 for cleaning, so that in the relatively empty floor Meredith could bring Richard to recovery. I thanked Lily and told her to have Joe put one on my tab for her. I then retreated to my office to finish up some paperwork before I checked on Richard.

With my signatures on every form in my inbox, I headed to Richard's room. He wasn't awake yet, so I checked his chart for post-op notes. Meredith had them covered. I walked over to her; she was on the phone again, probably with the same person who had called this morning. I gently touched the small of her back as she hung up. She jumped and turned around.

"Hey," I said softly.

She took a moment to gather herself. "Hey."

"A lot of secret phone calls today," I said, trying to sound offhand.

Her lips were drawn tight. Finally, she said, "Yeah, it's my mother." She took a long pause. "She isn't travelling. She isn't writing a book. She isn't anything. I've been lying to everyone."

I looked up, concerned. Why would Meredith lie about her mother? "Why?" I asked aloud.

Her eyes were beginning to water. "She has Alzheimer's," she said, slowly, painfully.

I took a deep breath. Ellis Grey couldn't have been much older than 60. "How advanced?"

"Very. She's in a home, and I'm the only one who even knows she's sick." She turned to me, and held an eye contact so electric. I was feeling her pain, like she'd built a bridge to her soul. "I just don't know what to do anymore, you know?"

I put Richard's chart down, and ran my fingers through her hair, stroking her temple and cheek gently with my thumb, as if I could smooth away the pain and worry from her eyes. She looked up at me, and I delicately kissed her forehead.

"I'm so sorry, Meredith," I whispered in her ear. "I'm so sorry." She looked up at me again, tears brimming but smiling. "Hey, why don't we go out for dinner? We've never really been on a date. You did good work today, you deserve it. I just have one last report to fill out and then I'll meet you in the lobby, okay? As soon as the Chief wakes up, just page me and hand off his chart to the on-call intern, all right?"

She nodded. I quickly hugged her, and then set off again to file the post-op report.

---

I was sitting in the lobby, checking the online neurosurgical department expenditure files against the hard copies, when Meredith strolled into the waiting area.

"Long day," I said to her, checking my watch. It was a quarter to 11. I was usually never at the hospital this late if I wasn't on call.

"Yeah," she said softly.

"Somewhere out there is a steak with your name on it." I closed the laptop and packed it into my bag. "And maybe a bottle of wine," I teased.

"This is why I keep you around," she shot right back.

"So, we need to talk," I began. _Rules_, I thought to myself. _I don't want any other man to have you._ In no possible world could I ever own Meredith Grey, but we could bond so tightly that she'd never dream of anything else.

"Wine first, talk later," she stipulated.

I got up from my seat, grinning. "Are you trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me?"

She giggled. "I think I like this 'rules' thing."

We both shrugged into our coats, and I straightened the collar on her jacket. I leaned to pick up my bag and turned around to escort Meredith outside, when I saw her. My face fell.

There she was, all six feet of her, in heels.

Suddenly, all the phone calls made sense. It was a warning – why couldn't I have at least listened to her voicemails?

In another time, another era really, seeing Addison Adrianne Forbes Montgomery would send a shiver down my spine. It still did, actually, when I realized how the events would unfold.

It wasn't enough to ruin my life once, but she had to ruin my new life, too. I'd picked up the pieces she'd broken and now she'd smash them all over again.

And Meredith, poor Meredith, she'd never see it coming. Addison was cruel, and she'd sting before Meredith ever realized something was wrong, because Addison was cutthroat and acidic.

In that split second, I just looked her in the eye, pleading. _Please, don't. Don't ruin this. I'm finally happy, I finally left you behind._

She stepped towards us, moving with purpose. I reached an arm out to Meredith, and told her the only words I could possibly come up with. Words that would not make it better, or cushion the blow, but give her some indication that I had never meant for this to happen.

"Meredith, I am so sorry."

_McIntern: Starting here, things are going to change. The way the writers handled it was all well and good but I'm taking a different tack – though it is probably different from what you expect. ;D I have no classes tomorrow so I'm going to put some solid work into the next chapter tomorrow, so I can hopefully have it to you Friday afternoon/evening. Thanks for reading!_


	12. Chapter 12: Behind Blue Eyes

_McIntern: This is officially the longest chapter to date, with almost 10,000 words. And, on that note, we've made 50,000 words – by a lot! Anyway, as promised, this is the chapter where I really begin to shake things up, and make them different from the series. There's considerably more original dialogue here. But I'm not going to delay you anymore…here it is, the long-anticipated Chapter 12!_

**Chapter 12 – Behind Blue Eyes**

_No one knows what it's like to be the bad man,_

_To be the sad man_

_Behind blue eyes._

_No one knows what it's like to be hated,_

_To be fated_

_To telling only lies._

Sure enough, Addison walked right up to us. Meredith's eyes followed her, searching for a reason why I'd apologized for this woman and her approach. I kept my gaze firm, not showing any signs the intense rage that had befallen me.

She stood in front of me, cocked her hip, and put her hand on her hip. It was typical Addison – she was going to let me make the first move. She'd just show up unannounced and let me explain her presence.

"Addison" I exhaled, and until then I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath. And with the absence of air, the pain swooped in to fill the void.

Meredith looked to me, her jaw fallen. She looked to me for answers, and I could give her none that would make up for this.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, venom seeping into my words.

"Well, you'd know if you had bothered to return any one of my phone calls," she said. Her voice was tinged with annoyance, as if it was my fault she was here, but I'd known her long enough to realize the immense pleasure she was getting out of this.

She turned to Meredith, setting her sights on her real prey.

"Hi," she said brightly, offering out her hand. "I'm Addison Shepherd."

Meredith's hand went limp, as an uneasy truth came to settle slowly in her brain.

"Shepherd?" she repeated weakly. It was like the wind had gotten knocked out of her. She finally dropped Addison's hand.

"And you must be the woman who's screwing my husband," she said, pointing from Meredith to me.

I kept my glare on Addison, because I saw Meredith turn her head to look at me and I couldn't bear to look at the pain etched on her face. I was selfish, completely selfish for not telling Meredith myself, for giving Addison the opportunity.

Addison thought she was only scaring off her competition, her enemy. But she'd also, in that moment, snapped any fragile ties that held me to her.

Suddenly, a tall woman with closely cropped brown hair came running in with the short stride characterizing someone wearing stilettos. She was clutching a raincoat around herself

"Addie!" she yelled across the lobby. "Addie, stop!"

_Nancy?_

My second oldest sister, Nancy, was closest in age to Addison and me, and had always had a soft spot for her when I dated and later married her. They were both OB/GYNs, and they had fostered a close friendship. She was even the maid of honor at our wedding. But why was Nancy _here_?

"You're too late, Nancy," Addison said as my sister tottered over in her heels. Seeing Meredith's still-shocked face, she shifted back into her cool, collected mode.

"I'm sorry, dear, I'm Nancy Shepherd-Alberts," she said in a smooth, clinical voice typical of my sister.

_How did Nancy know what Addison had done? And why was she conducting herself like she was at a party?_

At this, Meredith seemed to collect herself.

"Nancy Shepherd? What are you, some kind of freaky polygamist or something?" she hissed at me.

"No, Meredith, Nancy's my sister. I'm so sorry, I should have explained everything sooner."

"Save it!" she screamed. "I'm going to Joe's – and don't follow me there!" She caught me trying to sneak out with her.

I could feel my heart sinking like a stone. I'd hurt her, deeply, and though Addison had dealt the blow, I was the one who gave her the weapon.

I turned to her, my own personal demon from Hell.

"Addison, what are you doing here?" I said through gritted teeth.

"Your hair's different," she said casually, as if I had asked her about the weather.

"A lot of things are different." I spat out the last word.

"I like it…it's very Russell Crowe," she said, running her fingers through my hair, acting as if I hadn't spoken or made my hostility evident. Nancy, to her credit, simply bit her lip.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, exasperated.

"What are _you_ doing here?" she shot back. "You just pick up and leave everything? Your house, your practice, your friends? You had a life in Manhattan."

"_Had_," I emphasized. My time in Seattle had rendered my former life a distant memory.

"And now you have a girlfriend in Seattle," she concluded. I bristled at how Addison's assessment of the situation seemed so inadequate. "She seems..." she said, searching for the word, "sweet." Her false kindness would win her no favors here.

It was odd that with Meredith, my anger at Addison had faded to bittersweet pity, and as soon as she left the rage coursed through my blood just as it had in the dark days following the affair.

"The ice you're on," I said warningly. "Thin." I began to walk away. Addison did not get to speak to or about Meredith. I crouched over her existence protectively. Addison had stolen so many things from me. I didn't make decisions about our wedding, our house, our life, or even where we went to dinner. She told me what we were doing on weekends. The sad, naïve sap that I was took it; I thought that was what marriage was, putting up with someone else consuming your life. And after she'd sucked my autonomy, she'd dashed it against the rocks by sleeping with my best friend. She'd taken everything from me, and somehow it wasn't enough for her. I had finally learned what life was about, what love was about; not letting someone consume you, but fitting yourselves to each other to complement. A yin and yang, as opposed to an eclipse.

But Addison kept right on taking.

"She's young," she added. "That whole wide-eyed 'Ooh, he's a brain surgeon' thing happening." I turned back to face her. I didn't know why – when would I stop seeking out the pain she dealt me? "But still sweet – which is what you were going for, right? The anti-Addison?"

She was right, in that respect. Meredith was nothing like Addison. Addison was very put-together; she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and a practiced façade, necessary in the world of WASPs she'd entered into. She was witty, and cutting. Her feelings did not run very deep, but her sense of pride and reputation did.

Meredith, though, was genuine. She tried to hide her feelings sometimes, but that was more of a defense than a preference. You could always see through them if you looked hard enough. Meredith was emotional, and when you were with her, you got the feeling she was _all_ there. There was nothing in reserve that she kept separate and waiting in the wings. Meredith was delicate, but not weak. Graceful, but strong. Vulnerable, but tenacious.

And yet I was just as confident as ever that she was my true soul mate, the one I was destined to live for and with. I wasn't with her because she was Addison's antithesis – if anything, I wasn't with Addison because of everything that she _was_. I could see how my older sisters and my wife might view Meredith as a rebound or a mid-life crisis (Candace had told me the whisperings that circled my mother's kitchen table), but instead of realizing that Addison was wrong because she was the anti-Meredith, they all just assumed I'd get over Addison by finding everything she wasn't. And how could they know – they'd never met her. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, just as surely as I knew my name, that Meredith was the missing piece.

I realized I had to tell Addison. She didn't stand a chance.

"If you came out here to try and win me back," I challenged, "you can forget about it."

"I did. I flew all the way across the country to reminisce over wedding photos, get drunk, fall into bed, and make you realize you can't live without me." She said it as if it were so possible, as if she expected it to happen. I couldn't help but laugh, inside my head, at how deluded she was.

"Relax," she said. "Derek, I'm here for work." She dropped her gaze. "I'm helping with the TTTS case you guys admitted last week, and from Richard's briefing, I should be…"

_Richard knew?_

_ Richard knew and he didn't tell me?_

_ After what I'd told him, he'd called Addison out here?_

"Richard knew you were coming out here?" I asked disbelievingly.

"He asked me to come," she clarified quickly. "Didn't he tell you?"

"No," I said bitterly. "He didn't."

She considered this. "Hmm, well, surprise." She went to get in the elevator, and then leaned over.

"The hair, though? You know I've always had a thing for Russell Crowe," she purred into my ear.

Improbably, advice my mother had given me about Mr. Lauer's mean Doberman echoed in my mind.

_Don't run away, or it will chase you._

I stood stone-still as she sauntered away towards the elevator. I heard a sigh. I had forgotten Nancy was standing there, and now I rounded on her.

"Nancy," I hissed.

"Hey, stranger," she came up and pecked me on each cheek. It was so transparent and devoid of any real emotion – Nancy had fit in well with Addison's crowd, even if she was new money. It was like the part she was born to play.

"What are you doing here?" I repeated the same question I'd posed to Addison. "Don't you call first? Couldn't you have warned me?"

"Derek," my older sister said coolly. "I think you've made a terrible mistake. You're still married, what were you thinking fooling around with some slutty intern?"

"The only mistake I made was not divorcing Addison sooner," I snarled. "And who told you that? Was it Candace?"

"Candace told Mom, and you know how Mom can't keep a secret," Nancy said, shrugging, cavalier. "We all think you're making a mistake. Well, except for Candace, but she's always been a bit of an oddball…"

"Nancy," I said, seething. "Why are you here?"

She sighed. "Richard called Addison a couple of days ago, asking her to come out for a consult on a case – twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. You know, it's very rare, Addison's one of the only people in North America qualified to handle such a case."

I stared at her, waiting to see where she came into play.

"And, well, she started packing up and she called me to tell me she was going to Seattle," and Nancy's voice began to thicken. "Derek, I've already lost a brother, to lose my best friend too, I begged her to stop. I tried to convince her that your slutty intern was just a phase…and it turned out that wasn't why she was leaving…"

I felt a new rage boil over, directed at my sister.

"_You_ told Addison about Meredith?" I asked, trying to control myself. "And she's not slutty. Don't you ever say that about her."

She ignored my emotion. "So, tell me about her. Kathleen said she's not even single."

"What does Kathleen know?" I asked. "The only people I've spoken to since I've gotten here are Candace and Mom…because no one else returns my phone calls."

"Derek, Mom tries to be strong for you," Nancy said sharply. "But we're at home, so we _know_ how much this is hurting her. You tore our family apart."

"Correction," I responded heatedly. "Addison tore me apart. I just needed to get out."

"Fine, whatever," Nancy said dismissively. "But I still can't believe you're living in a trailer. A _trailer_, Derek! You're regressing – you're becoming less mature. And I didn't just come to try and stop Addie. Mom wanted a status report."

I shook my head disgustedly. My sisters and their bizarre interpretation of family duty…

"So, are you going to tell me?" Nancy prodded.

"I'm not one of your sisters who kisses and tells," I said pointedly. "She's a lot of things, but she's none of your business, especially since you're the one who brought this on me."

"I just can't believe you didn't tell her," Nancy mused, "especially if you supposedly care so much about her."

"She's my world, Nancy," I rebutted. "And forgive me if I didn't want to live my life under the shadows of my past."

"Wow," Nancy said, eyes wide. "I've never seen you like this, over a girl. Even Addison."

"I've never been like this over a girl," I said quietly, looking down. "Especially Addison."

"Oh, don't be bitter," my older sister scolded. Despite my anger with her, she was my sister, and I knew I couldn't be as mad at her as I was with Addison. After all, she had tried to stop her, even though it had been her mistake that she was here – well, and Richard's. And maybe she could put Mom at ease about my life her. "I mean, shame on Addison and all that, but he's Mark, Derek." I bristled at his name – if he had shown up in Seattle I couldn't promise what would've happened. "I mean, what did you expect? He's just…Mark. And who hasn't gone there once or twice, right?"

I looked up at her, speechless. She looked up from her nails, and surveyed me. Somehow I was blessed with the power of speech.

"What did you say?" I asked dangerously.

"Oh come on, everybody sleeps with Mark," Nancy said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "It's practically a rite of passage."

I stood, taken aback. Who was close to me that Mark _hadn't_ somehow known intimately? My sisters, who apparently had all passed him around? My wife, who instead of talking to me finds shelter in his arms? My mother, who had raised him like a second son? And then, it occurred to me, the one person I could be sure had never been touched by Mark's influence. She was across the street, probably as mad as hell at me, drowning her sorrows in a bottle of tequila.

My heart hurt at the thought of it. I had to get rid of Nancy and Addison and talk to her, try to rebuild what we had shared.

"I get it, okay?" she said, trying to call me off. "I get that they made a terrible mistake."

"Yeah, Nancy, you get it?" I said, voice rising. "Because you're not a psychiatrist. I can't forgive her, because there's nothing left for me to go back to. Our relationship – it was brain dead, still breathing, heart beating, but there was no life left in it. What Addison did, when she slept with Mark, she pulled the plug. And you can't just put the plug back in. Because there's nothing left. Addison and I, we're dead."

Nancy softened. My mother, she'd told me, had seen it months before it happened, how practiced and removed I looked when Addison and I visited. Knowing my sisters, they'd seen it, too.

"I'm sorry, Derek," she whispered, uncharacteristically pulling me into a hug. "I should've said it before you left. I'm so sorry. I guess we just thought that you were being unreasonable." She looked at me, her calculating eyes brimming with tears. "It's just so hard – we thought we knew you for so long, and then you move out here, and it's like we don't know you at all anymore. It was just easier to think you were going through a midlife crisis then to think you were this person we didn't recognize."

"I'm sorry too, Nance," I said, returning her embrace. "But I…I was happy out here. Maybe I'll be happy again. There isn't any promise left for me in New York."

She nodded. "Well, I'm going to have to get a plane back," she said sheepishly. "Admittedly, I didn't think this far ahead."

I smiled. "Don't worry, Nancy, you can stay with me in the meantime."

And suddenly, the Nancy Joy Shepherd I had always known came back in full force.

"Ah, yes, the trailer," she said, with a sneer. "Lovely. I'm going to have such a report to give when I get back to Connecticut."

"I need to stay, just a little bit longer," I said to her. "For another hour or so. I'm sure you could go bug Addison about her case if you so choose."

Suddenly, my eyes flashed, and Nancy leapt to comfort me.

"I won't invite her back to the trailer, Derek," she promised. "I have far more social graces than that."

And, as unlikely as it was, I laughed. Though Nancy was not the most understanding when it came to my sisters, it was good to have someone around that understood.

As Nancy boarded the same elevator Addison had, my pager went off at my belt. I was simultaneously relieved that I could work on somebody whose problems were bigger than my own (I was being selfish enough already by not having told Meredith about Addison, I might as well soak up its full benefits) and being annoyed that I couldn't go to Joe's to talk to her.

The page was from George O'Malley, asking me to meet him in the ER.

_Oh God, not Meredith, please don't have let anything happen to her, this is all my fault, if I'd just been honest maybe this wouldn't have had to happen – please, dear God, please let Meredith be okay._

To my surprise, George, Meredith, and Cristina Yang were all there, struggling to get Joe, the bartender from across the street, to sit quietly in a cubicle.

"No, guys, come on, I don't need to be here!" he was shouting.

As soon as I came down, Meredith glared at me, before fleeing. Cristina went to follow, frowning in my direction, and then was off to comfort Meredith, I'm sure. George remained by Joe's side, though he would not look me in the eye. Of course, she would've told her friends, who must now also hate me.

"Joe Tolbert, age 33," O'Malley rattled off, as if this were rounds. "Fall due to unknown origin and suffered a skull contusion. High radial pulse."

"Hey, Joe," I said cheerfully.

"Hey, Doc," Joe said, distracted. "Do you think we could get this over with? I really need to get back to the bar."

"Joe, you know I'd be a pretty crappy neurosurgeon if I didn't give you a thorough examination," I warned. I turned to George. "Page one of the on-call interns and have them take Joe up to CT for a scan." I started making up a chart for Joe, and turned to the friendly barkeep. "Luckily, CT's never usually crowded this time of night, so it should be over and done with pretty quickly." I smiled and walked off.

I went to my office and turned to my work. Meredith was still reeling from the confessions earlier, and I was going to do my best not to pry.

---

Soon enough, Dr. Hawkins had paged me to the room on the surgical floor that Joe had been admitted to after his CT scan.

"Sorry to page and run, Dr. Shepherd," Hawkins apologized. "But there are two GSWs coming into the ER in five minutes and they've paged me down."

"No problem at all, thanks Hawkins," I said. I took a look at the scans.

Joe had an aneurysm in his brain the size of a golf ball. Though he was stable now, there was evidence of a brain bleed and if we didn't go in and fix it in a couple of days, Joe wouldn't leave the hospital alive.

The tricky part was the size of the aneurysm – a simple clip job like the one I'd done in my first surgery with Meredith on Katie Bryce would not hold this aneurysm, not while there was blood flowing. Any amount of human error would cause the aneurysm to burst.

I went outside to note the findings on Joe's chart. George, Meredith, Cristina, and Izzie Stevens all loitered by the nurse's station.

"Do you think he's gonna be okay?" George wondered aloud.

"Do you think he's gonna need an operation?" Yang said, trying to sound concerned. If you didn't know her, you might miss the edge of hopefulness in the ambitious intern's voice.

"Operation – yes," I said casually, strolling up to the nurse's station. "Okay – hard to tell. Basal artery's blown up like a balloon, subarachnoid bleeding, aneurysm the size of a golf ball." I shook my head at the absurdity of it all. It was fortunate the fall didn't burst the aneurysm.

I could feel the tension coming from Meredith and her friends, but I was going to be professional. I needed an intern for the surgery, and everyone in the hospital knew Bailey's interns were the best of the bunch.

"No way to clip something like that," George said miserably.

"Not without magic fingers," Yang added.

Then, suddenly, it came to me.

"Or a standstill operation," I said, looking at the interns with a gleam in my eye. Meredith rolled her eyes.

"You're doing a standstill operation?" Yang asked incredulously. She noted the glares from her fellow interns – as Meredith's best friend, Cristina was supposed to be on Meredith's side, not courting me for surgeries. "He's doing a standstill operation!" she responded defensively.

"I'd like to try," I amended. "But first, I need some additional patient history, overnight labs, and…" I surveyed the interns, and held the chart out to Meredith. "…a cerebral angio."

She stared at me, refusing my olive branch. "I'm drunk," she said simply. _And it's all your fault, you son of a bitch._

"Meredith…" I began, as O'Malley took the chart from my hand.

She walked away. I sighed and wondered if I'd ever be able to get through to her. I tried to follow her, but Stevens, Yang, and O'Malley each stepped to block my path, and one of them whispered the word "bastard". I sighed, accepting my punishment – it wasn't as if I didn't deserve it.

I caught up with her, leaving the hospital. She was walking quickly, angrily.

"Meredith!" I called, running to catch up with her.

"Go away!" she fired back.

"Just wait!" I hedged. "We should discuss this." She wheeled around abruptly, so that I almost ran into her.

"Here's a thought – no!" she shouted. "Quit following me!"

"At least let me explain…" I called as she continued on her path out to the pouring rain. She wheeled around yet again.

"Explain?" she spat, her blue eyes afire with anger and humiliation. "You know when you should've explained? The night we met in the bar, before any of the rest of it." She continued walking – I followed, unable to willingly walk away from her. "Yeah, that would've been a good time to discuss this." Her voice wavered on the edge of tears.

"Look, I know how you feel," I said. And I did – I'd felt the exact same way when Addison had betrayed me, but I could still feel that strong connection between myself and the angry, stunning girl in front of me. We could fix this, if only she gave me a chance.

"Do you?" She turned violently to face me once again. "Somehow I doubt that, because if you did, you would shut up, and you would turn around and go back inside because you would realize that I am this close to getting in my car and running you down in the parking lot!" She put extra venom into the last words and paralyzed me. I watched her storm out into the rain, angry and hurt by my hand. George hurried out to her with an umbrella, trying to convince Meredith to let him drive her home. I sighed, and tried to blink away the tears welling in my eyes as I watched the love of my life scorn my name and presence.

The previous weeks had all been so easy, the happiest I could remember in my entire life. I should've known that the other shoe would drop in time. I should have know that I'd never completely escape the hold Addison had on my life, as unwanted as it was.

As angry as I was with her for ruining my life, I knew the blame lay squarely on my shoulders when it came to Meredith. I'd been so concerned with my own feelings that I hadn't considered Meredith's emotional well-being.

And I knew, for as long as I lived, I would spend the entire time trying to make that up to her.

I was the one who had waltzed into her life and pushed her into a relationship with me. I had set her up to fail.

I remembered suddenly why Addison was even out here – Richard asked her out. Why hadn't he told me? I stormed up to the room to ask him. Before _it_ had happened, Meredith had told me he was awake and his vision was intact.

And, of course, I found Addison in the room with him. Addison had just told the punch line to some lame story, probably about one of her patients, and she was sitting on Richard's bed, laughing with him. I stared at them, openmouthed. Addison looked at me and suddenly stopped laughing. Richard sensed the tension in the air, too.

I turned to look at something outside the room, and then walked in to put my bag down on one of the chairs in Richard's room, clearing my throat, trying to indicate to the other two that I wanted to speak to Richard alone.

Addison cleared her throat, too, and set her hand on one of Richard's. It was so easy to forget that she'd studied under him, as well. "Well," she said, "I'll be back in the morning to report for duty, and you get some rest." She kissed him on the forehead, gave me an appraising look, and left. No doubt she could see my pain from earlier.

I watched as she left the recovery wing. "What is she doing here?" I asked, defeated.

"You and I both know she's the best in the field," he said groggily. "Bringing Addie out here was a business decision, nothing personal."

"Oh," I said, sarcastically. "Well, what a relief! It's not personal." I looked at him, stone-faced. "It is personal to me."

"The workings of my surgical unit don't have anything…"

"…don't include my wife!" I shouted angrily.

"…don't include your private life!" Richard finished loudly.

I stared at him, wondering why Richard was being so harsh, when he _knew_ I was the one who'd suffered most at Addison's hands.

He sat up slowly. "Burke will be Chief of Surgery until I'm back on my feet," he said simply.

Early in my tenure at Seattle Grace, Preston Burke, the Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery and hospital top dog, had asked me what had lured me to Seattle. I'd told him of Richard's offer, and as he was probing Richard to find out why his alliances had changed, I learned that Burke was being groomed for the top position. I had silently resented Richard for promising me a position he'd also promised to someone else, especially as unpleasant as Burke, but Meredith had kept me sufficiently distracted. But now that I was already so damaged, the resentment reared its ugly head and sprang to life from dormancy.

"You gave Chief to Burke?" I asked, barely keeping a hold on my anger.

"Like I said," Richard said coolly, "there's no room for personal in being Chief."

What in hell was he talking about? I'd been nothing but professional in my time at Grace.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I hissed.

"How long have you been sleeping with an intern?" Richard shot back.

I stood there, stunned, that Richard had found out despite the care Meredith and I had taken. I scoffed quietly and looked down. "So, I guess part of being Chief is personal," I said quietly, looking Richard in the eye.

Richard rubbed his forehead. As a doctor, I knew I shouldn't have been stressing a patient so recently out of brain surgery, but as a man I was angry with Richard.

"Close the door on your way out," he said wearily.

I obliged, even slamming the door to _ensure_ it was shut.

I pulled out my Blackberry and dialed. After a few rings, it picked up.

"Nancy, it's Derek. Meet me in the lobby in five, I'm going home."

---

I woke up early the next morning, despite not getting much sleep at all. I absently ate a bowl of Muesli while Nancy woke up from the couch. She groaned and got up, sat at the other side of the table, and poured herself a bowl and added some of the raspberries sitting on the kitchen table.

"Okay, the trailer sucks," Nancy said groggily, and peered out the window. "But in the light of day, the land's nice; Seattle's pretty in the daylight. And you have your thing for ferries, so…"

"Ferryboats," I corrected. I could do with some ferryboats this morning.

"Right, whatever," Nancy said dismissively. "So, you can drop me off at the airport before your shift, right?"

I sighed. "Yes, Nancy, despite the fact that I have a job and it's great to see you, I will pack you away on your plane back to the East Coast."

Since I now had to contend with a stop at the airport on top of my forty-minute commute, I got dressed quickly, packed mine and Nancy's belongings into the car, and headed out. Twenty minutes into the drive, I turned to her.

"So, what are you going to report back to Mom?" I asked, curious.

"That you're still running in circles around all the women in your life," Nancy said casually. "But that's to be expected with four sisters and a dead dad."

I frowned, trying to figure out what she meant.

"I'm not running around in circles," I said quietly. "I was doing fine until Addison showed up."

"Derek, can you even remember the last time you were alone?" Nancy asked, sipping from her disposable coffee cup. "You've never been single, ever. You haven't divorced Addison; you just run out here and pick up a girlfriend in Seattle while leaving things totally unresolved in New York. You're not going to get happy until you get some space. Just get away from Addie, away from the intern. Just get away, and figure out what you're doing here. You owe that to both of them; you need to figure out if you're done with your marriage, and if your feelings for Meredith are real. You owe that to yourself."

I stared at her in amazement.

"Kathleen's the shrink," I said incredulously. "Not you."

She smiled, and kissed me, warmly, not like she had in the hospital lobby a few hours earlier.

"Nancy," I said. "Thanks for flying out here, for trying to look out for me. Thanks."

She smiled, and we sat in silence for awhile. I would have to try and explain myself to Meredith, apologize sincerely, and then we could both take some space and decide whether we were really meant to be. We owed it to each other to figure out if this was real.

When we finally reached the airport, I gave Nancy a bear hug and big kiss.

"Please, Derek, promise me that you'll come home and visit soon," she said earnestly. "Mom would really appreciate it."

"I will, Nance," I promised. "I just have to straighten some things out here first, and then I'll be there as soon as I can. I think it'll be good." I grinned.

"Just remember what I said," Nancy said in a singsong that reminded me of our childhood, when she and Kathleen would "parent" me whenever they deemed necessary. "You made a mistake back there, but you still deserve what makes you happy. Figure out what that is."

"I love you, Nancy," I said, releasing her. "Have a safe trip."

"I love you, Derek," she said, gathering her overnight bag and her purse. "I'd better see you soon!"

I waved as she went through the doors to Sea-Tac, as I had two months ago, coming from the other direction. I would make good on my promise to visit my mother and sisters, and despite her meddling ways, Nancy had good points. Now I just had to convince Meredith that what I had to say was equally important.

---

I arrived at the hospital at 7 AM. After a shot of triple espresso, it was as if I hadn't gone to bed in the early hours of the morning, and despite the dread I felt towards having to witness Meredith's pain, I felt good. On my way to check in on Joe, I found Burke, and I went to talk to him.

"So, congratulations are in order," I said as cheerily as possible. Burke began to walk away, but I followed persistently.

"Don't sweat it, Shepherd, I'll only be your boss for a few days," he responded stonily.

"I am well aware of Richard's recovery time," I said, drawing level with the cardio surgeon, "I'm the one who operated on him, remember?" Burke may have been the one Richard had picked to be Chief, but I was on first-name basis with him. I was the one he'd entrusted to poke around in his brain. And I was the one he'd called all the way across the country because he doubted Burke's abilities. Just because he was mad at me because of Meredith didn't mean I wasn't the better guy for the job.

"I do," he conceded, "and then he survived and chose me to take over while recruiting your wife."

That had been a low blow, but I'd asked for it. I tried to mask the anguish.

"Clearly he has brain damage," I joked, and ducked into the viewing room to drop off Joe's chart.

"Or is it your ex-wife?" Burke questioned. "Because I'm a little fuzzy on that."

I sighed. "Uh, we're separated."

And speak of the devil, who should wander down the hallway in salmon pink scrubs but Addison herself.

"Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Burke," Addison said airily.

"You're never interrupting," Burke indulged.

"She's always interrupting," I said under my breath. Addison turned and directed her next words towards me.

"I was just checking to see if Dr. Burke secured the…"

"Intern you requested." Meredith had appeared from the hallway. At first I was surprised to see her so close to me, and then I realized what was happening. "He did."

I gaped in disbelief, first at Meredith for appearing so…okay with the situation, and then at Addison, appalled that she had the gall to do something so spiteful to a woman she didn't even know. Addison simply grinned. The woman was the devil.

I looked at Burke – he obviously knew what was going on, because he just smiled and walked away. It occurred to me that the entire night staff of the hospital must have known what went down last night – so not only did the entire hospital know about Meredith and my relationship, but also that Addison was the one to shoot it down before it could even leave the ground.

I wheeled around, refusing to look at my soon-to-be-ex wife, and picked up my Blackberry. I used my track ball to scroll down my contacts list until I found the appropriate list item.

After a few rings, a bright secretary's voice picked up.

"Tuttle, Harrison, and Miller, Emily speaking."

"Hi, Emily. This is Dr. Derek Shepherd; I'd like to speak to Mr. Tuttle."

"I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Tuttle is out to lunch right now. Can I take a message?"

"Emily," I said quietly. "Could you please tell Mr. Tuttle who is calling and let him decide whether or not he wants to talk to me?"

"Y-yes, sir," she said, and immediately some intolerable hold music came on.

Sure enough, in just five seconds, I was patched through to John Tuttle, attorney at law.

"Derek!" John said warmly. "How is life in Seattle going?"

"Very well up until recently," I said, going no further into the details. "Do you remember the documents we arranged back in July that I asked you to keep handy?"

"The divorce papers you had me draft?" John asked. "Why, of course, Derek. Things with Addison didn't work out?"

"No, John," I said as civilly as possible. "She seems determined to take what little I have left."

"Well, would you like me to fax the papers over for you?"

"Actually, John," I said smiling, "I was wondering if you might be persuaded to spend a little time out here on the Pacific coast.

"Now, Derek, I have a practice to run, you know that…"

"John, I could make it quite worth your while. Besides, no one out here is quite as good as a bona fide New York lawyer."

"Well, Derek, if you were anything less than an old friend," John said amiably, "there would be no way. I'll hop on the next plane out."

"Thanks, John. Really, I mean it. I just…need to put the New York part of my life behind me."

"Understood. I'll call when I can tell you when I'll be there."

"Excellent. Thanks again John." I hung up the phone. If Addison was going to be this immature, I was going to make her grow up fast.

After I took care of Addison, I had to go take care of His Royal Highness Preston Burke. I went looking for him and found him on the stairs to the catwalk. I went to corner him.

"Ah, Burke," I said, resuming following mode. "You gave Grey to Addison? Are you sure about that?" There was no doubt in my mind that he knew – but did he think he was messing with me? Because the real loser in that situation was Meredith. My heart sunk. The loser in this whole messed up melodrama was Meredith.

"That's not your call, Shepherd," he said, bounding up the steps. "And for the record, I'm always sure." I continued to follow him at a distance. Without turning his head, he noticed.

"Did you need me for something, because as the new Chief…"

"Interim Chief," I interjected.

He turned to face me. "Chief nonetheless."

I faced him, smiling. "Ever attempt a standstill surgery?"

Burke transferred his clip board to one hand and put his other hand in the pocket of his lab coat. He was all ears now.

---

Burke, Yang and I were briefing Joe on our treatment plan.

"It's the location of the aneurysm that makes it tricky," I explained.

"Your body temperature would be lowered; cool enough that it would prevent any damage and stop the heart," Burke assured the patient.

"Which stops the blood flow to the brain," I said, connecting this scary detail back to the brain surgery, "which reduces the risk of rupture." I'll have forty-five minutes to clip the aneurysm…"

"…Before I step in and get the heart started again," Preston finished.

Joe looked visibly shaken. "Y-y-you want to freeze my body, drain my blood, and stop my heart?" he asked, eyes going wildly from me to Burke and back again.

"And bring you back," I pointed out.

"In forty-five minutes?" Joe questioned.

"Right," I confirmed.

He smiled disbelievingly. "If you go over, is it free?"

"No!" Yang said sharply, as if she was dealing with a petulant child as opposed to a patient. Burke grimaced.

"Dr. Yang," he said, "you can go handle the pre-op labs."

_Awkward_. Then I remembered I really had no business judging other people's social faux pas.

Joe looked at us both earnestly. "How much? How much does something like this cost?"

I smiled and patted Joe's shoulder. "I don't think you should worry about that right now."

"Okay, look, you guys said you can kill me and bring me back. I believe you; you're doctors. But I own a bar, I don't got any insurance. So I'm not that concerned about the surgery, so much as what I'm gonna do when I survive it. I just…I need a number. Ten grand?" He gritted his teeth, looking to either of us for affirmation. "Twenty?" I shared a glance with Burke, knowing the numbers Joe would come up with were nowhere near the actual cost of the surgery. "Thirty?"

I sighed. "It's a couple hundred, at least."

"At least," echoed Burke. Neither of us looked him in the eye. I didn't want to see that moment where his spirit dimmed – I'd seen it in Meredith's eyes already today. I wasn't sure I could handle it again.

"Listen, Joe, you really need this surgery," I said, kneeling down to get on his level. "We can help you figure out the rest when you get through it."

"Okay, Dr. Shepherd," Joe said dubiously. Burke and I walked away, looked at each other, and I left to make arrangements for the surgery.

---

I met Addison in the hallway, and took a deep breath. It was time to lay my cards out on the table.

"It took a lot of nerve," I said angrily, "requesting Meredith."

"Oh come on," Addison said defensively. "She came highly recommended."

"Right," I said sarcastically, ushering her down the hallway, away from the nurse's station Burke was lurking in.

"So, you don't recommend her?" Addison asked.

"I did not say that," I snarled, frustrated with how she was turning my words against me.

"Just not for her medical skills," Addison concluded. Suddenly, Meredith appeared from the hallway behind Addison.

"Dr. Shepherd?" she asked.

"Yes?" I asked, before realizing Addison had answered as well, and was the one Meredith was addressing.

"Labs confirm what appears to be abnormalities on the ultrasound," Meredith said quietly. "And I think you should come and see for yourself."

"Thank you, Grey, I'll be up in a few," Addison said, smiling. I considered it to be closer in meaning to bearing one's teeth.

"Meredith isn't a fling," I blurted as soon as Meredith retreated from the line of fire.

Addison just stared at me, mouth gaping. But I couldn't beat around the bush or give her false hope. She had to know the state of our marriage.

"She isn't revenge," I continued.

She looked down, refusing to make eye contact.

"I fell in love with her," I said, and until I said it I hadn't been sure. But now that I thought about it, I couldn't remember, in my thoughts, when I hadn't loved her. It was something I'd felt since I met her, and despite all odds I'd always loved her. I hadn't admitted it, to avoid sounding like the pathetic jilted lover who would cling to the next compassionate soul he found, but Meredith and I were different, and I'd always known that, somehow.

She just stared at me, trying to say words but rendered speechless.

"That doesn't go away because you chased her away."

She finally looked up at me, her countenance wavering but nothing more. She would not break down in public, she didn't have it in her.

"You know," she said quietly, "sometimes people do desperate things to attract attention."

"What?" I whispered, folding my arms resolutely. "Wow…that's your side of this? That I didn't pay you enough attention? Is that what you were thinking when you got naked with my best friend?"

"Well, at that point I wasn't thinking at all, Derek," she said, pulling me into an empty exam room subtly. "I was just scratching an itch – which I would like to do with you now."

I resisted her amorous eyes. "I can't Addie, and I won't. I…don't love you anymore. You broke me too badly, there's no coming back from that. I've met someone else."

"You and I got successful," she said, voice rising, as she pulled the door closed behind her. "We got busy, and we got lazy – we didn't even bother to fight anymore, Derek. And Mark was there, and I missed you." I couldn't look her in the eye. "And now, I'm sorry, I'm more sorry than you can _possibly_ imagine, but at least I'm talking to you about it."

"You're talking to me about it _now_," I corrected. "If you'd talked about it in the first place, we wouldn't be here. You dug your own grave, Addison, now lay in it." I made for the door.

"Derek," Addison said desperately. "Please."

"I'm a sink with an open drain, Addie," I said simply. "Anything you say runs right through me." I turned to leave, and then paused. "I'm flying John Tuttle out to handle the divorce." I turned back to face her. "You can contest it, but all I need to do is provide a witness that you and Mark had sex to win the case, so please, just make this easy and sign the papers."

"Derek Christopher Shepherd!" Addison shouted as I walked down the hallway. "Don't you give up on me! I won't sign anything, not until we can work this out!"

I retreated to my office, trying to ignore the wailing of my soon-to-be ex-wife as I left the hallway. Sure enough, on my fax machine, were the draft divorce papers that I'd had John work up for me. Though I was still going to have him come out to administer the terms of the divorce, I needed proof for Meredith, to show her that I was serious.

---

_But my dreams, they aren't as empty_

_As my conscience seems to be._

_I have hours, only lonely_

_My love is vengeance that's never free._

---

I was in the middle of Joe's brain, doing as much as possible before we cooled him, and though I knew I was fully capable of taking care of the aneurysm, it made me nervous that I was operating on a friend. Joe was there to witness that monumental moment in my life where it changed forever. And that was standstill notwithstanding.

As I clipped a piece of membrane covering the area I'd need to access, I went to ready Burke.

"That's as far as I can go for now," I said, peering up from the scope at my cardiothoracic attending and Chief. "Let's start cooling him."

I stood back and closed my eyes, pacing. Even with reduced blood flow, it was a delicate procedure with a relatively high risk of failure. But I was all Joe had, and I was one of the best in the country, I told myself. If I can't do it, nobody can.

The nurses heaped bags of ice on Joe's body as Preston started the bypass machines. After a few minutes, Joe's body reached 60 degrees, and Burke began to clamp the leads to the bypass machine and turn them off. Finally, the nurse called "Flatline!"

"Alright people!" I called. "We have 45 minutes."

"Start the clock," Burke commanded. And I began evacuating the matter surrounding the aneurysm.

"So what's your Joe story?" I asked Burke as I worked, keeping my eye on the scope. "Seems like everybody around here has one."

"You first," Burke said playfully.

"Okay," I accepted. "Went to Joe's place the night before I started working here. I'd only been in town, you know, a few days." I looked at him, and turned back to Joe's brain. "Met this woman. I got drunk and she took advantage of me. Or she got drunk and I took advantage of her." I paused thoughtfully. "I got drunk and she…no. We were drunk, definitely, somebody took advantage. Either way, I like to look at it as my initiation to Seattle. What about you?"

"Oh, well I don't have one," Burke said smugly. "I just wanted to hear yours."

I looked at him for a moment, rolled my eyes, and smiled. Then I continued about my work of actually exposing the weakened vessel.

As I exposed the vessel, I noticed how fragile and slippery it was. Then, twenty minutes later, when it came time to actually clamp the damn thing, I had trouble placing the clamp. Time was running out. I had to clip this thing. After several minutes of struggling, I voiced my frustrations.

"Dammit," I cursed. "I can't get the clamp to hold." I directed a nurse, not taking my eyes off the viewfinder. "Give me the bipolars. I'm going to go in at a different angle." I called for irrigation.

"Time remaining?" Burke asked.

"Seventeen minutes," Yang reported.

"Shepherd," Burke turned, addressing me. "I'm going to need eight minutes to get him back, to warm him up." I looked at him.

"Time to make the next seventeen minutes count," I muttered. "Right, go in from there," I instructed my staff. "See it? See, that's why we can't do it right there."

The time seemed to fly by as I continued to lose my grip on the vessel.

"Eight minutes," Yang updated.

"We need to start rewarming, Shepherd," Burke noted.

"Take the bipolars, please, thank you," I asked a nurse, noting my time limit but continuing to work.

"Shepherd!" Burked commanded sharply. "We need to start warming him up, now!"

"Hang on!" I insisted.

"Now!" Burke resisted. "I need it now, Shepherd."

"I can't seem to get…I just can't get behind the aneurysm," I said, quietly flustered. "If I could get behind the aneurysm, I could just…" The clamp slipped onto the vessel. "…there it is. Got it, that's it."

"Are you sure?" Burke asked, beginning to ready the bypass machines.

I looked away from the viewfinder. "I'm always sure." I stepped back from Joe's brain; we couldn't close him up properly until blood was once again coursing through his vessels. "All right, good work everybody!" I turned to Burke. "It's all yours there, Chief." I grinned under my mask.

I stepped into the scrub room – one of the neurosurgical residents would close for me. I took off my mask and glove and picked up my Blackberry. I waited for the beep.

"Hey, it's me," I said quietly. "I know you probably don't want to hear from me, but please...give me a chance to explain it all to you. The ball's in your court – I'll be at the trailer by six. I want to talk if you're willing to listen." I hung up the phone and began to scrub out.

---

_No one knows what it's like to feel these feelings_

_Like I do._

_And I blame you._

_No one bites back as hard on their anger._

_None of my pain and woe can show through._

---

I sat out on the front porch of the trailer, drinking a beer and watching the water from my land on Bainbridge Island through the rain. It was gorgeous, the stars were out, but something was missing.

And, almost as if by magic, I saw a blue Jeep Cherokee climbing my driveway. I picked up the yellow envelope on my hand and went to sit on my step.

The Cherokee pulled to a stop, and then the engine cut. And Meredith, my angel, quietly stepped out of the car. She wasn't yelling, but stood there, hands in pockets, guarded. She didn't want to be hurt again. I just stared at her, drinking in every detail of her body I'd missed, though it'd been less than a day. I was swept away by how hopeless I was without her, even after all this time.

"You offered an explanation," she said quietly. "Are you going to give it to me?"

I took a swig of beer and sighed.

"One night, I parked my car. I unlock my front door, go inside my house, and something's different. Nothing's different, everything's the same, but yet still, something's different. And I stand there for awhile. And then I know. See, there are moments for me, you know, usually when I'm in the OR, when I just know what's gonna happen next." My voice broke – it was like living the moment all over again. "So I go upstairs. As I'm walking down the hall, I try to prepare myself for what I'm going to see when I go into the bedroom." After a debate, Meredith came over and sat down beside me on the step. Maybe it was just to get out of the rain, but she voluntarily sat next to me. That had to be something…

"I step on a man's jacket that doesn't belong to me," I said, offering her the beer. She took it. "And everything I think I know just shifts." I shook my head, and looked at her stunning blue eyes. "Because the jacket that doesn't belong to me is a jacket that I recognize. And what I know now is that when I go into my bedroom, I'm not just going to see that my wife is cheating on me." I stared at a clump of grass growing through the gravel path to the trailer. "I'm going to see my wife cheating on me with Mark, who happened to be my best friend." I took another sip of beer. "It's just so pedestrian, and common, and dirty, and cruel. Mostly just cruel." I paused, and thought. "I left, and came out here." I looked at her again, and our eyes met, and I just felt buzzing going through my body. Could she feel it, too? Could she really deny that, despite my colossal mistake, we were meant to be together?

"And you met me," she said quietly.

"And I met you," I repeated, smiling slightly.

She took a deep breath, shook her head, and got up, and started to walk to the car. My face fell, but then she turned around again to face me. "Well, what was I to you? The girl you screwed to get over being screwed?"

I gazed at her, wondering how on Earth she could think that. I got lost in that floral scent of hers; the way her hair bounced when she talked; her quiet voice, almost a whisper; her slim curves; the way my heart swelled until it was too big for my chest every time I saw her. I remembered not only every time we had sex, but the quiet ease of the moments after, the stolen kisses, the caresses, the embraces. I remembered how I felt lost whenever she wasn't near me for too long. I remembered seeing her in the bar and knowing I'd die with her in my heart. I remembered telling Addison that I loved Meredith, with conviction in my heart and soul.

"You were like coming up for fresh air. It's like I was drowning and you saved me."

She stared at me for awhile, and I could've sworn that her eyes started to brim with tears.

"It's just…" she said, her voice wavering with emotion. "…you know, I don't know about you, but when I met you, I thought I found the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I was done, so all the boys and all the bars – who cared? Because I was done. It was like you were the answer to all the questions I never asked. And I was ready to be done, and everything was just so easy with you. And then…there's this. It was so easy before…so why does it have to be so hard now?" By the time she finished, the tears were spilling down her face, and her eyes were an even more vibrant blue than they usually looked.

"I love you, Meredith," I said quietly, my own eyes moist.

She stopped, and looked at me for a second, and continued to talk and pace.

"And, you know, I haven't done the whole relationship thing. I don't know how it works, but with you, I was so damn sure I wanted it. But now, you've done this, and I don't know if I can do this anymore, Derek. You told me to take it on faith." She stared at me, tears still flowing freely.

I winced – I had been awful to her, and I couldn't deny it. I could only try to be better now.

"I'm sorry, Meredith. She no longer existed to me, not after that night. I thought it would be better this way.

She stopped pacing and simply stared in disbelief. "You thought it would be better for your tall, leggy, fabulous wife to introduce herself to me?" She resumed pacing, and shook her head. "Did you know she was coming?"

"No," I said adamantly. "I was going to tell you once we were divorced." I leaned over the porch to grab the yellow envelope I'd been carrying, and held it out to her. She tentatively took the envelope, and opened it. There, on the New York divorce paperwork, was my signature, in four places.

"I have a lawyer coming out this weekend. If Addison agrees and signs, we'll be divorced. If not, I'll take her to court and we'll get divorced in a month or so." She looked at me, unsure of what she wanted to say. I could tell she wasn't expecting this.

"I…just wanted her to be a part of the past when I told you." I sat there, contemplating, searching for the right words. "I wanted her to be water under the bridge."

"Yeah, well, we don't always get what we want, do we?" she asked, quietly, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve.

"I just signed the papers today, Meredith, but we were done long before I came to Seattle." I gazed into her puffy eyes and held the contact. "I want to earn your trust back."

"Not while you're married," she said without hesitation. She scuffed her shoe against the gravel, thinking, and then looked back at me. "I…I'm going to have to get back to you. Because right now…I can't not yell at you. I need to be able to not yell at you for this to work."

I smiled a little. "Take some space – take all the time you need. Make sure this is something you want to do, Meredith. Give us the chance to be something good. I want to make sure this is right for both of us." I looked at her. "I'll be right here waiting."

She continued to scrub at her eyes with her sleeve, wiping away the tears, but she managed that slight smile of hers, too. "Good night, Derek," she said, in that whisper-quiet voice of hers.

"Good night, Meredith," I breathed back, and continued to smile until her Jeep was gone and out of the driveway. I finished my beer and headed inside.

It'd been a rough day, but she came back. She came back and was willing to think about it, think about us. And she'd felt it, too – when she met me, she'd felt the same way. And they always said that love never fails.

---

_If I swallow anything evil_

_Put your finger down my throat._

_If I shiver, please give me a blanket._

_Keep me warm, let me wear your coat._

---

_McIntern: What did you guys think? I like where the chapter went but I'm not entirely sure if it's "believable". I had Derek tell Meredith that he loves her – because at this point I truly believe that he does. And she knows that her feelings for him are incredible, though she doesn't quite have the experience with them that he does, so she naturally tends to doubt them a bit more. Did you guys think it seemed believable? And I struggled to describe what Derek and Meredith were __**doing**__ during their conversation – were you able to picture them in your heads? Did it seem right to you? This is really my first big chapter, and I want to make sure I'm heading in the right direction, so please, your critique is welcomed and encouraged! Or, if you thought it was great, that's nice to hear, too! Looking forward to hearing from you guys!_


	13. Chapter 13: You've Got to Hide Your Love

**Chapter 13 – You've Got to Hide Your Love Away**

**McIntern: I realize it's been a disgracefully long time since I've updated but I hope this 7000+ word chapter may at least partially make up for it. I'm trying to make this a very productive weekend in terms of CUFA. Last chapter, we felt the full effects of Addison's appearance, but Derek and Meredith talked it out at the trailer and decided to at least try to work it out.**

_Here I stand head in hand  
Turn my face to the wall.  
If she's gone I can't go on  
Feelin' two-foot small._

---

I drove onto the ferry that would take me to Seattle Grace with a literal rain cloud following my car. I'd finally gotten my massive All Terrain Behemoth back and all of this rain was making my driveway into a waterfall. I was grateful to have the best four-wheel drive vehicle in Seattle back.

Meredith had not totally and utterly abandoned me after she found out about Addison, but I was far from light. I had still dealt a large blow to the trust we'd been building, and Addison had shown no signs of going away. Her case was all squared away and yet I hadn't heard her talk of a flight home. I, of course, refused to let her live in the trailer, so she could be gone for all I knew.

But Meredith was still not willing to talk to me. I couldn't really blame her, but I was miserable, even more so than I had been in those last days in New York. I felt like a moon dispatched from orbit of a planet I'd been centered around for so long – wandering in space with no real course.

It was amazing, when you thought about it, how much my world was centered on Meredith. I'd thought I'd been in a sorry state of affairs the day after we first met.

I didn't even know the half of it. Not only did I have this general feeling of uneasiness and confusion as to what direction I was headed in, but there was this dull ache inside my chest that reminded me, as if I could forget, that I'd betrayed her and it was my fault.

Maybe Nancy was right. Maybe I needed to figure out where I was going when I wasn't chasing a girl. Maybe I needed to be my own planet instead of orbiting someone else.

Or maybe I wanted to get back in Meredith's orbit as soon as possible. Because I knew that I wasn't chasing Meredith and had told her so myself weeks ago. I was chasing a lifetime, a forever, a destiny, a soulmate. I was a variable, and Meredith was my value. Put together, I could make some sort of sense of myself.

Did I really just compare my relationship with a principle of algebra?

Yup, sorry state of affairs.

The ferry's engines disengaged and the gentle motion I'd been aware of had stopped. Soon enough, the hatch popped open and I began to shift the car into drive.

As I disembarked, I began to wonder why I hadn't gone above deck to watch the ferry's progress across Elliott Bay. Even in the rain I'd usually go to at least the lower deck. Then I remembered why. It was after Meredith and my last night at the trailer.

_ "…You said you used to have a private practice in New York?" Meredith asked, leaning on the railing of the deck. She watched the Seattle skyline appear from beyond the fog, however distant, with the wind whipping at her jacket. It was particularly cold this morning, confirming that summer was falling away to give fall its time._

_ "Yeah," I said, folding my fingers between hers on the rail. With anyone else, it would have been an awkward move, but somehow with Meredith it seemed seamless. "Cutting open Fortune 500 CEOs' brains so that they could defy cancer and finally set their lives on the right path."_

_ "Cynical, aren't we?" Meredith said, smiling that broad smile that indicated she was having the time of her life. It was odd how I'd strived for that smile so much at first, and now she'd flash it over the simplest things. "I just didn't have you pegged for this."_

_ "Don't peg me, I'm not peggable," I quipped. She giggled, and I sat silent for a moment. "Peg me for what?"_

_ "A trailer out in the woods," she said breezily. She gently pushed her hair behind one ear, and then looked at me. "You just don't seem the type. Moussed hair, New Yorker, world-class brain surgeon – moonlighting as a mountain man."_

_ "I enjoy the simpler things in life," I retorted. "And like I said, I'm not peggable. And, another thing, don't diss the trailer."_

_ "I'm not dissing the trailer," she turned to me, defensively. "I told you before, I like the trailer. Though I'm not a huge fan of waking up forty minutes earlier than my already-early wake up time."_

_ "I'm glad you like the trailer," I said, planting a quick kiss on her cheek. "Just look at it as forty more minutes we get to spend together, instead of you mumbling at me in your sleep."_

_ "I do _not_ mumble in my sleep!" She shoved me playfully…_

By the time I woke up from my reverie, I was already in my parking spot at Seattle Grace. That was startling. I could have been going 60 mph all the way from off the ferry and I wouldn't realize it.

I was walking towards the main entrance to the hospital when I saw a very familiar blue Jeep pulling into the parking lot. That dull ache in my chest became a sharp pain.

And, against my better judgment, I decided I had to talk to her. I was going through withdrawal.

I waited between the pillars, out of the rain, as she began to walk towards the door. She saw me but was clearly trying very hard not to. As she walked past I made a move to follow her.

"Stop!" she barked.

I looked around, trying to figure out what I'd done now. "What?" I asked defensively.

"You're stalking me," she complained. "Stop it."

It was just like it had been yesterday, before she came to the trailer. What had happened after she left?

"Did we not communicate last night?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes," she conceded, not looking at me.

"Did you hear what I said?" I pressed further.

"Your wife screwed your best friend," Mer said unsympathetically.

"Yes, then from that point on she no longer existed to me anymore," I fumbled.

"You had marital amnesia." She twisted my words against me.

"No!" I grimaced. "Hey, come on, I bared my soul to you last night."

She turned around to face me. "You think I don't realize that? Yeah, I heard what you said last night. You got hurt. But did you hear what I said?" I looked at her, brows furrowed, mouth open, with no response for her vitriol. "I told you I was still angry. I told you I needed time. And by time, I mean longer than twelve hours." She stormed away angrily.

Izzie and George slinked in behind her, murmuring words I couldn't hear. Meredith was right – I'd told her to take space and then forced myself on her. But how could I help it when I needed her so badly?

I picked one foot up, slowly, and put it in front of the other, in an effort to actually look like I had some purpose, some reason to be. And I didn't want to be accused of stalking again.

I'd counted fourteen steps past the automatic doors when Preston Burke spotted me from the stairs to the catwalk.

"Dr. Shepherd!" he called, bounding towards me. The man had unnaturally long legs and it didn't take him long at all to reach me.

"Dr. Burke," I called back, without much enthusiasm. I stopped my progress and watched Meredith retreat from my line of vision towards the elevator. I swore I could still catch the floral scent she left in her wake when it occurred to me that as I was staring off into the distance, Burke was actually talking to me.

"…in from Wilkinson General," Burke finished. "We're doing a harvest…"

Why was he telling me this? Burke had made it fairly clear that he wasn't interested in me coming anywhere near the position of Chief, so it must have been to brag about his accomplishments in his temporary tenure.

"Commendable, but not…" I began.

"…in OR 1 at four," he said, dropping the bomb on me. So that's why he was revealing his evil plot.

"I'm in OR 1 at four," I protested, though surely he knew that already, as it was his game.

"Your surgery is non-critical," Burke said simply, glancing at the clipboard in his hands.

"You can't bump me," I spat angrily as he tried to talk over me. The combination of already being in a bad mood and Burke trying to exercise his power over me made a detail I'd have normally accepted somewhat disgruntled turned it into a bone of contention.

"As Chief, I can," Burke countered.

"Interim Chief," I reminded him. "Bump somebody else."

"You're in the OR we need," Burke said, voice raised and staring me down.

"Why don't they do the harvest at Wilkinson?" I asked, annoyed. At this point I'd already lost but I was going to make Burke's life as difficult as possible if I had to go down.

"Small facility in the boonies – a 'doc in the box'," Burke said imperiously. "We have the location, the airport nearby and the staff. Your surgery is rescheduled." The bastard couldn't keep the smug smile off of his face.

I couldn't handle Burke this early in the morning. I simply glared at him and stalked off towards my office. That surgery, a non-emergent tumor resection, had been my only scheduled procedure of the day, and unless I got called for a consult I would be doing paperwork all day. I groaned, opened the door, and drew all the blinds, and then collapsed on the couch with my hands clutching at my head. It was going to be a horrible day, that was for certain.

---

One thing I still did have to do was give Richard a final examination to make sure he was cleared for discharge today. He showed no signs of a developing infection, but there would be no way he'd be ready to come back to work just a couple of days after surgery, so he could spend the rest of his recovery at home.

I remembered the phone call I'd made the afternoon before.

_"For God's sakes, Richard, if you're not going to go on vacation with me, can you at least try not to ruin mine?" a high but groggy voice said into the phone._

_ "Adele, it's Derek," I said cheerfully. "Richard told me not to bother you, but I think it's very important that I tell you this. It's my duty as his doctor."_

_ "His…doctor?" Adele blanched. "Excuse my poor manners, Derek, but what is this about my husband?"_

_ "Richard had brain surgery two nights ago and I can't_ _discharge him without someone at home to take care of him," I said casually._

_ "Richard had _brain surgery_ without telling me?" Adele shrieked into the phone. "How could he…how could you…? Derek Shepherd, you are in a _serious_ amount of trouble right now!"_

_ "Adele," I said, trying to placate the woman who'd been like another mother to me during my residency and fellowship years. "Richard wouldn't let me bother you in the Virgin Islands. But I have to tell you now because I can't release him tomorrow without a ride."_

_ "Oh, I'll do more than give him a ride," Adele said threateningly. Then her tone changed back to its sweet, sassy, normal pitch. "And Derek, do tell Carolyn I've said hello. It's good to hear from you again."_

_ "I'll see you soon, Adele," I said, and after exchanging goodbyes I hung up the phone._

Richard may have thrown me for a loop by bringing Addison out without notice but by calling in Adele I'd definitely pulled the rug out from under him. I didn't envy Richard his days at home. Adele was attentive to a fault, and there'd be no doubt that she'd drive him crazy with her nurturing.

And after a few hours of mind-numbing paperwork, I decided it was about time to go examine Richard for discharge. It didn't hurt that I was going stir-crazy in my office, either.

I knocked and waited on Richard's "come in", rolling my eyes. Normally, I would walk right in; normally, the patient had been waiting to see me. But Richard insisted on privacy, and since he was not only a VIP patient but also my boss, it would be hard not to comply.

When permission to enter was granted, I walked in and pulled out my penlight.

"All right, Richard," I said without fanfare. "If everything checks out today I can let you go home."

"Great, Derek," Richard said wearily. "The sooner I go home, the sooner I can come back. I hate sitting here and not being able to do anything."

"Yes, well, we'll see about that," I said vaguely. I turned on the penlight and attempted to shine it in his right pupil. Richard began fidgeting – maybe he had a sensitivity to light? Was he developing an infection? I gently placed my hand on his forehead to steady him and tried again, but he began waving his hands at me, trying to ward me off. Was this a symptom?

"You have to try and stop it, Richard," I whispered, trying to think.

"Okay, stop," Richard snapped, batting me away. "That's it."

"That is _not_ it," I said irritably.

"C'mon, will you please stop it?" Richard said, annoyed. "That's it."

"That is not it, Richard, hold still," I said, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw his pupil reacting to light. If there was anything wrong, which, erratic though his behavior was, I doubted, it wasn't due to technique.

"How can I hold still when you're poking me?" he whined, finally resting his hands so I could check the left pupil.

"I have to poke you to discharge you," I reminded him, pocketing the pen light to make notes on the chart.

"What makes you think he _wants_ to be discharged?" Adele's voice echoed into the room. And there, wearing a burgundy sweater and festive scarf was the _tour de force_ herself. Adele Webber – the only person I knew of that Richard would give his full, undivided respect.

"Derek," she continued, looking at me gravely, "don't you know this hospital will crumble unless Richard's here holding up the walls?"

I looked to the Chief's face – it was blank with shock. He'd had no idea Adele was coming.

"Adele," he said as normally as possible, regaining the power of speech. "You're supposed to be in the Virgin Islands…"

Adele sat her purse down on a chair under a hastily scribbled 'Get Well Soon' sign put together by the floor nurses. She sauntered over to Richard's bed side, appraising his condition and her eyes never leaving his. There was an edge to them – a dangerous edge, one I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of.

"You are in five kinds of trouble, Mr. Man," she said, the edge dissolving from her eyes as she leaned over the bed to kiss Richard's cheek. She sat on the edge of the bed. "You had brain surgery and didn't tell me?" The pain in her voice, subtle, was there, and Richard watched her carefully.

"Well – i-it was just a small procedure," he tried to reassure her, lamely. I looked up from his chart. _Small procedure my ass._

"You had brain surgery!" Adele reiterated, firm but gentle.

"I-I didn't want to ruin your vacation!" he defended, still never breaking the stare. He didn't want to get into more trouble. Richard had played the marriage game a long time – apparently he was a much better player than I was.

"You don't even know what a vacation is – how would you know how to ruin it?" Adele said half-jokingly.

He finally broke the stare – he was out of cards.

"Well, anyway," he began, and then paused, confused. "How did you…?" And then he looked at me, realization dawning on his features. "You called my wife?" he demanded, his voice suddenly stern and authoritative. It was this Richard Webber I knew best, not the one who stuttered and stumbled.

I looked up at him, amazed that he didn't see the irony. "You called mine."

He opened his mouth to protest, but words wouldn't come, so he closed it and I came back to claim my territory again.

"Look, having someone home with you is the only way I'm letting you out of here today," I reiterated. He knew the rules – hell, it was his job to enforce them. VIP patient or not, this _particular_ rule was put in place for a reason.

He looked at Adele, and his features took on a resigned look. "Fine," he conceded quickly.

"I thought I saw a fabulous-looking woman walk by." I turned to look for the source of the low yet feminine voice, but I already knew who it was. When my eyes confirmed that Addison was indeed lingering in the doorframe, I rolled my eyes and finished up Richard's chart.

"Addison!" Adele closed in on Addie and hugged her. "Yes, see? I told Richard I knew you and Derek would get back together."

If I'd been drinking coffee, I'd have either choked on it or spat it out all over the chart. My pen froze over the paper. Richard looked at me, silently apologizing.

"Uh…actually, I'm here on a case," Addison said awkwardly. It was out of character for her; if I hadn't been struck dumb myself I'd have pointed it out to her.

"Addison and I are over, Adele," I said woodenly, shuffling the papers so I could sign the discharge form.

"It's not like we're divorced…" Addison contended.

"Practically divorced," I shot back.

"You've had counseling?" Adele asked, more to Addison than me, and I looked out the window, hoping to find something to hold my attention, as I pocketed the pen.

Before Addison could answer, I did for the both of us.

"We had adultery – that was enough."

"Hmmm," Adele said, in a way that meant she was ending the conversation but surely the moment she and Addie were alone they'd bring it back up again. I hoped that Richard regretted ever inviting Addison to Seattle.

"I'll call you later, okay?" Addison said, ducking out of the room. Addison was a WASP – avoidance was how she dealt with tough situations. Cut and run before it reflects badly on you or your family.

Adele walked over to me and shut Richard's chart.

"You should give her a chance, Derek," she wheedled, just like everyone else had in my life.

"It was good to see you," I said hollowly, giving her a peck on the cheek. I looked to Richard. "Keep him in line."

And with that I retreated to my office. Paperwork had never looked so inviting.

---

I ate my vegetable paella (Spanish-style…yeah, okay) in the convenience of my office, to avoid the she-beast that was stomping around the hospital claiming to be my wife. Though, truth be told, I was also avoiding Meredith. Because it seemed, no matter how much I wanted to leave her alone and how much she didn't want me to talk to her, I couldn't help myself.

It was just like in junior high, when I'd eat lunch while alphabetizing the science films in the A/V room.

As I put yet another forkful of rice, peppers, and onions into my mouth, a new email had appeared in my inbox. It was surprising, because I never got email – anyone who wanted to contact me usually just called me. And all hospital memos got forwarded to a special folder I never read. I had to keep up my reputation as an arrogant neurosurgeon.

_Greetings, Derek Shepherd, _the email read. _This email is to confirm your flight on October 10__th__ at 11 AM on Allied Airlines Flight 1112 from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Washington to John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York._

Oh, yes, that email. True to my word, I was going home for a weekend to visit my mother and sisters back in New York. For one thing, I was happy that I could fulfill my promise to Nancy and Mom, since it didn't look like I was going to be able to get off for Thanksgiving or Christmas (department head or not, my lack of seniority was working against me). And for another, it might be good to get away from Seattle for awhile, and let Meredith take space without me having to fight the urge to try and talk to her every second. Maybe I could get some perspective.

Of course, I didn't really have a choice anymore, because I'd promised and now I'd bought the tickets.

I filed the e-mail into a folder for safekeeping, and turned back to my paperwork. I hated slow days.

---

Finally, by mid-afternoon, I was going stir-crazy. All of the proposals, releases, and evaluations that had been sitting on my desk, accumulating for weeks, had been read, signed, and dated. I needed to cut something. Or socialize with other humans. Anything other than sitting at that desk and feeling my life slip away.

It occurred to me that though being a department head meant paperwork, it also meant I could snatch surgeries from other neurosurgical attendings and residents. I headed downstairs to study the OR board, only to find Almighty Chief Burke poring over it. I couldn't help but get my jabs in.

"It's a mess," I said from behind him, still on the staircase. He peered around warily, as if I was exactly the person he hadn't wanted to encounter at this moment, which meant that my comment probably hit close to home.

"No it isn't," he countered, pretending nothing was wrong. But I knew the truth. Burke wasn't coping well with a series of traumas, a weird guy with a fetish, and a harvest surgery.

I came off the stairs and leaned on the railing, checking out the board. "I think I know a mess when I see a mess." As I predicted, three surgeries were causing chaos and throwing the carefully balanced board all out of whack. Burke had had the gall to bump Warner, the surgeon with the biggest ego in the hospital (possibly with the exception of Burke). Trouble was brewing. "You've got the harvest tying up OR 1, Seibert tying up OR 2. Bowel obstruction in OR 3."

"It's simply a bit crowded," Burke said imperiously, but I noticed he failed to look me in the eye. Burke was in denial publicly, but underneath the confident façade he knew he was screwed. Luckily for him, Richard was already at home and unable to witness the fiasco.

"Well, your 'crowded' is my 'seriously overbooked'," I said haughtily, enjoying the power I was wielding, "and in my book, seriously overbooked is a mess." I looked over at the scrub nurse approaching, and knew that Burke's life was about to get even more complicated – and I had front row tickets. On some level I felt bad for the man, but he did need a serious check to his ego, especially with the way he treated his world-class staff.

The nurse looked annoyed, with her arms folded and her face impatient.

"They need to know if there's any word on the Seibert liver," she asked as my beeper went off. It was Addison – she wanted to see me. I slipped the pager back onto the top of my scrub pants – I had successfully forgotten she was there for a few hours. I was not answering that page.

"How much work do they have left?" Burke asked.

"A couple of hours," she responded.

"Then tell them I'll be in to see them," he said haughtily, hand on hip. The nurse departed without moving her arms, and she and I knew he was simply stalling for time, though, because the kid hadn't made a decision yet.

As if that weren't enough, the thunderous footsteps of Quincy Warner echoed down the hall.

"You bumped me for a _bowel obstruction_?" Warner called indignantly, flanked by his general resident lackeys.

"Ooh, uneasy lies the head that wears the Chief's cap," I said smugly as I pulled out my phone. Burke obviously had work to do that would not be well served by my continued mockey, and it was time to call Mom and tell her I was coming.

I strolled down the hallway into the research library, which was surprisingly empty, as the phone rang. I frowned – Mom never liked the let the phone go past three rings, something about it being rude to keep people waiting.

She finally picked up on the fifth ring, panting.

"Hello, Derek," she said breathlessly. "I'm sorry I didn't get to the phone, I'm watching Joey for Candace because apparently the flu is spreading through the hospital daycare like wildfire, and he's been so colicky lately…"

"It's fine, Mom," I chuckled. "It's been a slow day at the hospital."

"I figured as much," she said, more normally now that she had evidently stopped running. "Or you wouldn't be calling. Though you have me puzzled as to why you are calling, normally you wait for the evenings…have you seen Addison yet?"

I grimaced painfully. "Yes, Mom, I have. Listen, I got tickets and I'm going to try to come home this weekend. See you and the girls and Nancy again…even if I did just see her yesterday…"

"Oh, Derek, it will be lovely to have you back!" she said excitedly, though her tone then shifted to a more puzzled one. "I've been meaning to talk to you about Nancy – what happened over there? All she'll tell me is that she made a mistake."

I shook my head and rubbed my temples, sighing. "That would be one of those things that will be easier to explain to you once I'm home."

"I suppose it's too soon for you to bring Meredith to meet us," she said, baiting me. I sighed again.

"Well, for one thing, yes," I contended. "But that's another matter that will make more sense when I get there."

Though I couldn't see her, I knew my mother was frowning over on the east coast. "Derek, you've never been so cryptic before."

I smiled a little. "It's just that a lot of things have changed, Ma – you'll see. I think I need to come home for a bit to clear my head – but just for the weekend." I had to remind her that I had set up a life in Seattle and was not coming back to New York to stay.

"All the same, it will be wonderful to have everyone together again," Mom said, refusing to let me dampen her spirits. "Let me know when you take off what time one of us should come to pick you up. I love you, Derek."

"I love you too, Mom. Take care, I'll see you soon." I clicked off the phone, and hoped that somehow, in New York, the answer about how to love Meredith but still leave her alone would come to me.

---

After two hours in the library, I had read every study published in the September/October edition of the _Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry_. My sister Kathleen had an article in it regarding treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans from Iraq, and I was surprised she hadn't called me to gloat. She and I had a friendly competition going as to who could get more articles published in the journal. So far the score was five to three in my favor.

Even so, I was beginning to get restless. I hadn't done anything remotely surgical all day and Burke had been blocking my efforts to steal a surgery earlier. I decided to revisit the board to see if anything caught my fancy. Hell, at this point I was willing to just head in to observe some other surgery just so I could remember what it was like to stand in an OR. But there was nothing of any interest or potential, so I resigned myself to heading down to the ER to clear head traumas. I unwrapped a granola bar and tossed a chunk into my mouth as I stalked down the hallway. From behind, I heard the squeak of sneakers down the hallway but thought nothing of it until I heard the frantic call of "Dr. Shepherd!"

I turned my head to see George O'Malley's anxious form behind me. Come to think of it, I don't think I'd ever seen him relaxed anywhere except Meredith's kitchen. It annoyed me that he got to be so close to Mer when I didn't. But I had to be professional and not totally ignore interns.

"Dr. O'Malley," I acknowledged curtly, stopping.

"I was just in ICU with the harvest donor…" he panted, gesturing vaguely in the direction he just came from.

"Mmhmm," I prompted. _Talk fast, O'Malley_. I stowed the granola bar away.

"And Dr. Bailey, she has us do exams and procedures on patients even if they –"

"What'd you find?" I interrupted, arms folded. I didn't want his life story.

"Uh…she's decerebrate," George said, cutting to the chase. "The donor…her brain stem's still alive."

My annoyed demeanor fell and I simply stared at O'Malley, doing the mental calculus. Though it didn't necessarily mean anything, brain stem activity meant that the patient was not yet brain dead, and that meant that she was no longer a viable candidate for organ donation. With examination, she might be able to be saved.

It also gave me something to do. My anger at O'Malley ebbed.

"I…I just don't think they should cut her organs out if she's still alive – even if there is no hope," George faltered, interpreting my silence as a reprimand for wasting my time.

I smiled and clapped my hand on O'Malley's shoulder.

"I don't either. Take me to her."

George beamed back, and escorted me down the hall back to the busy surgical floor. As we passed the staircase, the aroma of that so familiar flower fell heavy upon me and sure enough, as I looked, Meredith was there. She was looking in the exact opposite direction from me – leading me to believe that she had just been staring at me. I looked longingly after her for a step, and turned my attention back to the task at hand.

"You said she arched her back when you pressed her chest?" I confirmed with O'Malley as we rounded the corner towards the donor.

O'Malley confirmed, nodding quickly.

"Excuse me!" I called after the retreating gurney. "Derek Shepherd, Head of Neurosurgery, do you mind if I take a look?" Greeted with silence, I pulled out my penlight and began checking her pupil reactivity. I wasn't about to wait for permission to consult on a patient in my own hospital.

"Uh…okay," the transplant surgeon said haltingly. "Yeah, she's still fostering. We have every intention of waiting until she's dead; she's in an irreversible coma…"

I pressed my knuckles into the indentation of her clavicle, and true to O'Malley's word, the donor's back arched at the pressure.

"Hines, the neuro at Wilkinson, ran the protocol…"

I nodded dismissively. This back-country doctor with the urge to cut had said enough.

"Missed decerebration, what else did they miss?" I asked, snatching the chart from its hook on the gurney and quickly skimming it. I could see the surgeon roll his eyes, but diplomatically ignored that. "She has a tumor on her…brain stem, right?"

Silence. I'd caught them.

"I don't see an MRI. Did you do an EEG to confirm brain death?"

The surgeon faltered. "Yeah…according to Hines."

"I don't know Dr. Hines."

"We have six patients in three states waiting for this woman's organs," he tried to rebut.

I looked back to the chart to prevent myself from expressing my disgust. "Yeah, and I'm sure they'd all be happy to know that the organs they're receiving are from somebody who's actually brain dead." I spotted Burke looking on from the corner of my eye. _Here comes trouble_.

"No one's going to touch her while she's alive," the doctor said indignantly. "For you to imply otherwise…"

Burke began heading over. "Is there a problem here?" he asked, eyeing the other surgeon. "Dr. Orson, Dr. Shepherd?" He shifted his eyes to me.

"Yeah," I said, looking over the patient again. "We have a donor who's still decerebrate. I want to do an EEG and an MRI."

"Expensive waste of time," Orson countered as Burke picked up the chart.

"I insist on it," I said quietly, to Burke. He looked at me. I knew he was gung-ho about this transplant surgery, but it was not in the best interests of the patient or indeed the hospital. Orson just wanted his name in the papers. We had a reputation to uphold. Burke knew that, and more importantly he knew I was right about this patient.

"You insist on it?" he asked imperiously. I had him in a corner but he'd never acknowledge it.

"I do," I said, looking him square in the eye. He returned the contact and held it for a few long moments, and then looked back down to the chart. I'd won this round.

"Well, if my Head of Neurosurgery needs an EEG and an MRI," he said, once again staring me down as he handed back the chart, "he needs an EEG and an MRI." I couldn't keep the smug smile off of my face. This was a win on two counts.

"You realize we have six patients waiting?" Orson rebutted.

Burke shook his head. "That is not my call, Dr. Orson. Who gets the organs is up to UNOS. Who donates the organs is up to the families." The tone of his voice became sharper, more intense; he was reprimanding Orson for his petulance. "Hell, I got a guy in the OR waiting for a liver that may not deserve to be saved, and again, that's not my call. But you want to know what my call is? Everything else." He glared at Orson until the visiting surgeon broke the eye contact. He wasn't made of strong stuff.

Burke turned back to me, his hands on his hips. "The patient is yours, Dr. Shepherd." And his eyes lingered for a moment. _You better watch your insisting_, they warned. _But you win this time._

I smiled. "Thank you, Dr. Burke."

Orson stormed away angrily, but I had bigger things to deal with than a second-rate surgeon with hurt feelings. "Dr. O'Malley, could you take this woman up to MRI? Carry this for me?" I surrendered the chart and my position at the side of the gurney. "Have them do the EEG first. Page me when the results are in; I've got something to take care of really quick." George nodded, wide-eyed, but took control of the gurney. I stood there, gazing at the nurse's station.

I approached her. I just had to invade her space once more, quickly. Just pull out the knife so that she could heal.

She saw me lean on the counter, like I did so many other times under happier circumstances, but to her credit she did not turn away or express disgust. She didn't look, though. Not that I expected it.

"I know you want me to leave you alone," I murmured. "I'm going to New York this weekend. And after that, I won't keep doing this to you."

She sat there for a moment, and then turned to me. Her lips were pulled together tightly, but her eyes did not have the same fiery edge of anger. They looked more sad than anything.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked simply.

I looked at her, smiling sadly, and shrugged. "Because as little as you think you mean to me, I don't know how to stay away from you."

---

_How can I even try?  
I can never win  
Hearing them, seeing them  
In the state I'm in_

The MRI of the donor's brain looked encouraging. It was a tumor I'd removed many times from many different brains. The only reason she was in a coma while the others weren't was that it had gone unseen for so long. There was a chance the coma was indeed reversible.

"You see the tumor on the brain stem right here?" I asked, indicating the spot to O'Malley.

"Looks pretty bad," George said grimly.

"Ever had a crappy day, O'Malley?" I asked him, turning to observe. "I mean really, really crappy?"

He looked away. "I have had many crappy days."

_Me too. Today is one of them._ "This one just got better," I said cheerfully. I turned to the sullen transplant team in the corner of the technician's booth. "Might as well go home, gentlemen. I will be the only one of us performing surgery here today. My friend here has a viable brain." Orson sighed deeply, defeated. I would never understand how some surgeons just wanted to cut, no matter what the consequences were.

"Okay," he said, strained, and walked away quickly.

I began noting the results of the MRI on the patient's chart as the team left, and George leaned in.

"Do you really think she'll be okay?" George asked, disbelieving.

"If I get the tumor out, she's got a good shot at recovery." I looked up at the intern and smiled. I got up to book an OR, but then I turned. O'Malley wasn't a bad guy after all…

"Look out for her," I quietly requested.

George looked to me, puzzled. And then the light in his eyes burned bright.

"M-M-Meredith?" he stammered.

My phone buzzed, and I briefly looked to see who it was.

_Der – Meet me in the lobby. Love, Addie_

I sighed, and looked at O'Malley sadly. "Yeah…"

I began to walk away, and decided to indulge Addison.

_OK_

That was all she got. A curt reply. I'd hear her out but I promised her nothing.

I got in the elevator to go down to the lobby and received another text. Groaning, it was from Pamela.

_Mom says you're coming home!_

As I began to text out _Not for good, just for weekend_, the elevator stopped and Addison boarded. I looked up from my text but continued to split my attention.

"What do you want?" I demanded.

"You told Meredith what happened?" Addison asked tersely.

I frowned at her – how did she know?

"I did," I said pointedly. "How do you know I talked to her at all?"

"I told her my side of the story, Derek," she mumbled, looking plaintively at me.

"You don't get it, do you?" I asked, incredulous. "I am done. We are done. We've been done for awhile, you just put the nails in the coffin. All I want to do is move past this, but you keep dragging me back." I sighed deeply, leaning against the railing. "I'm leaving for New York Thursday morning, to get the last of my things and check in at home. When I come back to Seattle on Monday, I will have a lawyer with me." The elevator came to a stop and I got off, disgusted, and stormed away.

---

The tumor was coming out easily, and I smiled behind my scrub cap. Not much had gone the way I planned it to today but at least I could give this woman her life back. My boring, unfulfilling career in private practice was proving beneficial in my experience with tumor resection. I looked to George, watching intently.

"She has a really good shot of waking up, you know," I mentioned as the nurse suctioned out the excess blood. "Excellent catch, O'Malley. If it weren't for you, this woman would be in a million little pieces."

I cracked my neck and looked up to the gallery. Burke was watching, and nodding approvingly, he turned to walk away. Like an eclipse, his body disappeared to leave Meredith's form in its wake.

She sat in a chair, her chin resting on her hand which was propped up by an elbow on her knees. She was watching intently, though she'd given me a cold reception earlier today. Not only was she here of her own free will, but she was the only one remaining in the gallery in Burke's absence. She could just be there to watch a brain surgery or support George, but the way her eyes flashed when mine made contact with hers – I just knew.

I stepped back in to remove the last of the tumor, and began to close. My fingers moved quickly to match my pulse. Before I even knew it, the surgery was finished and I heard myself woodenly telling George to take the patient to recovery.

I hurriedly began scrubbing out when the door opened to reveal Meredith standing there. My heart swelled in my chest. I opened my mouth to speak, but she held up a finger.

"I'm an intern," she said simply. "I wake up at six, spend fourteen hours doing every job no one else wants to do, and I come home exhausted. And sometimes I have to take care of my exhausting mother. And sometimes I have to take care of my exhausting friends." Wet tears began streaming down her face. "But I've found that through all that, by far, hating you is the most exhausting."

Despite myself, I quickly dried my hands and walked over to embrace her. She began openly sobbing on my chest, and I gently stroked her back, and inclined my head so my lips would meet her ear.

"I'll go get the lawyer this weekend, Mer, and on Monday it can be over. We can end this."

She looked up from the now-wet spot on my scrub top. Her eyes were such a vivid and piercing blue, and though her voice was thick with emotion it lost none of its melody.

"Not right now," she said, blinking tears away furiously. I stroked her hair, just a bit. It felt cathartic. "Can't we just try being friends or something?"

"That could work," I said, smiling down at her, and I pulled her in a little closer. "No avoidance, no expectations?"

She leaned back a little, and I reluctantly released her from my arms. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her wrists. "Yeah. Just us getting to know each other. No pressure."

I followed her out of the scrub room into the hallway, and I leaned against the wall, just looking at her. Friends. It would allow me to at least enjoy Meredith's presence, and maybe if I gave it enough time she would learn to trust me again, and let me back into my empty seat in her life. Maybe.

"I promise I'll be your least exhausting friend," I declared, crossing my heart and grinning. It felt easy, almost like old times.

She smiled back, in her more reserved way. "Don't make promises that aren't yours to keep." She began to walk away.

"Have fun in New York!" she called over her shoulder, breezily as if the last couple minutes hadn't happened.

It was going to be hard to look at Meredith and not touch. To come in closer but still give her space. To allow myself to care for her and not love her. But I knew that I had to do my best for her, and do right by her. I could only hope that someday, when Addison was far behind me, she would once again welcome my embrace and the brush of my lips on the nape of her neck.

That day would come soon enough. But I had a morning flight to New York to pack for.

---

_How could she say to me  
Love will find a way?  
Gather round all you clowns  
Let me hear you say  
Hey you've got to hide your love away…_

**McIntern: Ah, love! Next chapter we get to take a trip to New York to meet Derek's family! I believe we haven't actually met Kathleen and Pamela in the story. And for those of you who watch Private Practice…yes, I am aware of Amelia's existence. No, I don't feel like going back and changing the story to fit those details. I have grown very attached to Candace, thank you very much. Anyhow, off to sleep and then to write some more! :3 Oh, and please check out my writing blog…it's on my FanFiction profile under my website!**


	14. Chapter 14: Who Says You Can't Go Home?

_Author's Note: I apologize in advance, this chapter is mostly filler. But it gets a bit interesting at the end, I think. Anyway, I'll shut up, and see you on the other side._

**Chapter 14 – Who Says You Can't Go Home?**

Sitting on the plane flying eastward, it was hard to believe that just two months earlier, I'd exited the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport not knowing who Meredith Grey was or what her significance was in my life. I shook my head. Going home was good. I was fulfilling promises and taking space. I was not running away. Everything was different this time around.

Well, except for the ridiculous lines and the painfully slow-moving security checkpoints and the waiting game. I hated airports. I loved flying, but the airports were so taxing that it made travelling an ordeal.

I had called Mom directly before boarding to let her know that the plane would probably get in at 10:00, on time. After reviewing some paperwork I'd brought with me, watching _The Day After Tomorrow_ and _Mean Girls_, eating lunch and dinner and a two-hour nap, I still had an hour left to go on the flight. And now I was alone with my thoughts.

Meredith had every right to ask for friendship – our whole relationship until this point had been backwards. Sex, dating, stolen moments, confessing I was still married. We'd never just gotten to know each other without strings attached.

It was a miracle she was even talking to me at all. I should be grateful.

But it was hard to imagine not being able to touch her in all the little, intimate ways I wanted to. I had to restrain voicing my deepest desires. I couldn't push her towards what I wanted, not after the way I had hurt her.

I was playing by Meredith's rules now, and in a way it put me at ease. I would make it up to her by always considering her first. It was the only thing I could do now, even if she had no idea of my intentions.

I dreamily replayed every scene between me and Meredith in my head in vivid detail; flirting with her at the Emerald City bar, waking up on the floor of her living room, shamelessly flirting with her to no avail, our first date, our first night at the trailer, deciding we were in a relationship…all of them blended together in a mingled aura of happiness and longing.

Before I knew it, the flight attendant was vigorously shaking my shoulder.

"Sir!" she called loudly. "The plane has landed in New York! You have to disembark now!"

"Sorry," I said sheepishly, hurriedly gathering my laptop bag and suitcase. The plane was completely empty of passengers, except for me. I pulled out my Blackberry to see that Nancy had texted me.

_Flight 1112 at Gate 3? Im picking u up._

Nancy was picking me up – understandable, since she was the most senior doctor at the birthing center she started and was free to take time off whenever she wanted. Kathleen would probably arrive sometime the next afternoon, Pamela before dinner, and Candace a couple hours afterward since she was still a resident and subject to the beck-and-call of her attendings.

It was almost as if Mom had known I needed to talk to Nancy. I texted back a quick _yes_ and darted my way down the loading ramp.

I looked fervently around – most of my fellow passengers had exited the plane in a timely fashion and had already moved to baggage claim. So Nancy should be fairly easy to spot…

There! Even late at night, my sister would be the most put-together-looking woman in the crowd…quite unlike when she showed up in Seattle just days earlier. It was hard to believe it had been so soon since I'd last seen her.

She bridged the gap between us to give me a one-armed hug.

"Derek!" she said warmly. "It's been so long!"

I frowned at her, cocking an eyebrow. "It's been three days."

"Yes," she said, dropping her eyes and playing absentmindedly with her draped necklace. "Well, I was hoping you'd forget that part."

"Not on your life," I joked, hooking an arm around her. "You'll be paying me back for this one for years to come."

"Yeah, yeah," she said dismissively. Then she eyed my single bag. "Is that really all you brought?"

"Yes," I defended. "I'm only here for three days, I don't need a lot."

Nancy just smiled a devious little smile. "I'd have hoped you had learned by now that you'll be going back to Seattle with many more clothes than you left with."

I dropped my arm and stopped walking, jaw dropped as Nancy turned to face me again.

"You aren't serious," I groaned.

"Oh, but I am," she said breezily. "I found this adorable button-down Ralph Lauren that will set off your eyes wonderfully."

Yet another one of the many blessings of having four sisters. _Unholy amounts of clothing_.

As we walked out to Nancy's Porsche, I recounted her with Burke's arrogance and the almost-tragic harvest surgery.

"Just don't tell Candace," Nancy said as she popped the trunk of the sedan. "I get the feeling she's rather starstruck."

I slung my bags into the trunk and went to take my place in the front passenger's seat. "The guy's a jerk, plain and simple."

We fell silent while Nancy navigated the luxury car out of the airport and onto the highway. There was so much more activity in New York. The sheer number of headlights was blinding.

"So," Nancy said levelly, trying to keep her tone casual. "How did things end up with the intern?"

I sighed. "She was mad at me for awhile. Somehow she let me explain about the affair. We're trying to be friends right now. I think she wants to trust me but she just can't. So I'm giving her the space she needs." My head flopped against the window.

"You need it, too," she reminded. "You need to clear your head. And this is just the place to do it."

"Yeah," I conceded. "Somewhere without Meredith or Addison. She's been impossible lately."

Nancy's jaw tightened a bit. I felt a pang of remorse – I forgot how close Addie and Nance were. I forgot that not everyone immediately cut ties with her as easily as I had. Nancy missed her best friend.

"In her defense, Derek," Nancy replied, "you didn't divorce her. In her mind, there is still hope for reconciliation. Remember the world she comes from…in her mind, it was a perfectly logical conclusion that one day you'd come back and forgive her."

"Well, she knows there's not one now," I thought aloud. "Part of the reason I'm back is to pick up John Tuttle so he can handle the divorce proceedings."

Nancy's face fell a bit, but she caught herself quickly. She was being remarkably stoic for a Shepherd girl.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," she whispered, eyes plastered to the road. "I guess I knew it was coming eventually. But I just wanted to keep denying it."

I looked at my sister's face, shining yellow in the face of oncoming traffic.

"I guess I did, too," I confessed. "It was a lot easier to pretend I didn't have to do it. She didn't take the news well at all."

Nancy stole a glance at my face, appraising, and then looked back in front of her.

"You know she'll fight tooth and nail against it," she stated, not asking but declaring. Addie was not used to not getting what she wanted. I felt for her – in this case she simply _couldn't_.

"Nancy," I said, looking at her face even if she couldn't look at mine. "If Addison should contest the divorce…New York State requires a witness to testify to the affair…she told you what happened, right? Would you be willing to do it?"

Nancy swallowed hard and tried to pretend like I hadn't just asked her to betray her friend. I tried again.

"Please, Nance," I said earnestly. "It will be easier for both of us if we can just move on."

"Der," she said, uncharacteristic tears threatening to spill over her bottom lids. "Isn't there any other way?"

I shook my head. "Not if she doesn't sign straight away. If I have to take it to court, I need a witness." Nancy continued to stare pointedly out of the windshield. "Nance, you owe me this much. If you did this for me, all jokes aside, it would mean everything to me."

Nancy struggled for a few moments with my request, her mouth writhing in confusion and pain. Finally, she looked me in the eye.

"Derek, I will do it for you because you're my brother," she said slowly. "But promise me you won't run right back to the Grey girl. Promise me you'll take time to figure out what you _really_ want. I mean it."

I sighed again, but kissed my sister on the cheek. "Consider it a deal."

"I really, _really_ hope it doesn't come down to me," she said, almost to herself.

"Me too," I echoed the sentiment. "But since when has Addie ever backed down from a fight?"

Nancy smirked. "Good point."

As the car pulled onto the street where my mother lived, I felt a greater kinship with my next oldest sister than ever before. She was making a huge sacrifice for me, and though she warned me not to go right back to Meredith, she had acknowledged back in Seattle that the feelings I had for her were unique. Nancy was accepting, and she was probably the hardest of the bunch to win over.

Finally, Nancy piloted the car up the driveway to my mother's colonial. She parked behind two other cars – did that mean that my other sisters were already here? How did they manage to secure the time off?

As if she could hear my silent questions, Nancy quietly nodded as she switched off the engine and popped the trunk so I could get my bags.

"Kathleen and Pamela are taking vacation time and Candace is calling in sick tomorrow," she explained. "Mom may have over-emphasized the point of the family needing to be together whenever possible."

I dropped my eyes shamefully as I hoisted a bag over each shoulder. Mom was stoic whenever I talked to her but evidently my sisters were bearing the brunt of her worry. I made a silent vow to talk more often, and maybe buy Mom a webcam.

We entered through the back door directly into the kitchen, where all of my sisters sat around the table with my mother. It was a sight I was accustomed to seeing, and the familiarity put me at ease though I had just entered the lion's den.

"Hey!" I called, setting my bags down. Candace, typically, leapt from her seat and threw her arms around my neck, planting a kiss squarely on my cheek.

"You finally made it back, big brother!" she exclaimed.

Nancy rolled her eyes, and Kathleen stood from her chair to put Candace and I in a group hug. The oldest, Kathleen had always been very motherly and this was not a surprising move from her.

Once Kathleen and Candace had released me, Mom and Pamela got up from their seats to each give me a warm hug. Pam's hug was rather hurried and awkward, which shouldn't have surprised me, but I was glad she made the effort at all. As opposed to Nancy, the social butterfly of my sisters, Pam had always been rather introspective and not keen on big group interactions, not made any easier by our large family dynamic.

"Where are all the boys?" I asked, settling into a chair. All of my sisters were married, with the exception of Candace, who could never hold a boyfriend very long. In addition, between Nancy, Kathleen, and Pamela, I had fourteen nieces and nephews. There was pressure on both Candy and I to increase that number, subtle but always there.

"Let's see, Greg is putting Pam's kids to bed, and Rob's probably trying to wrangle Nancy's into the bath tub, and Troy is watching _A Cinderella Story_ downstairs with Casey and Becca," Kathleen listed off.

"They offered to take the kids so we could all catch up," Pam explained.

I looked around at my family. Mom was beaming, and though she looked tired, she did look relaxed at having her entire family together again. She set a cup of coffee in front of me, already dosed with skim milk and sugar.

"Decaf, of course," she said by way of explanation as she bustled back to the sink to clean up some dishes.

Nancy had taken a seat with her requisite cup of tea, and the other three had plates with some variety of party cookies on each.

"So," I said, taking a sip from my coffee. Mom always knew exactly how I liked it, and managed to make it better than I did myself. "What's up with you guys?"  
Kathleen laughed, rolling her eyes.

"You get back from Seattle after two months and you think _we_ want to tell you about _our_ lives?" she chuckled.

Candace popped up from her seat, suddenly engaged in conversation.

"Sergio and I broke up last week," she said, oddly cheerily. With Candace, you were never quite sure how she felt about a breakup. Obviously this one had gone rather well.

"Really, Candy?" I feigned shock. "This one lasted a whole three months, I really thought you two could go the distance." Sergio, a Spanish grad student that Candy had met while treating his friend for a congenital heart condition, was a good six years younger than her and still way involved in the mid-20s party scene. My sister, in her early thirties and a competitive cardiothoracic residency, could barely keep up. "Let me guess, he was eyeing the other _chicas_ a bit much?"

Candace playfully punched me in the arm. "Asshole," she said, before quickly covering her mouth and looking to my mother to see if she'd heard. Mom either couldn't hear her over the sound of the faucet washing dishes or pretended not to. "Yeah, that may have had something to do with it, but that's okay, because he wasn't ready to commit to anyone anyway." She proclaimed it proudly, as if she were happy to have had a justifiable reason.

"Yeah, as if you are, either," I teased.

"For your information, Der," Candy responded indignantly. "You having left has shown me what's important. I want a family, and Sergio was not really on board with that. My interests have led…elsewhere, anyway."

"No man is, not at twenty six," Pamela pointed out.

"Except for Derek," Kathleen teased.

It was true. I had married Addie at precisely the same age. And I had wanted kids…but I kept putting it off. After we finished our residencies…after the fellowships…after the practices were up and running…

We all fell silent as we breached the topic that was looming as large as the proverbial elephant in the room.

"Uh, I finished my dermatology fellowship at NYU," Pam interjected. "I think I'm going to stay there, see if I can work my way up the ranks and get some research going."

"Did you read my latest in the journal?" Kath asked cockily.

"Yeah, the PTSD one?" I seized on the topic. "It was good, except for the fact that you didn't discuss brain scans or diagnostic tools."

"It was about treatment, Der, not diagnosis," Kathleen defended. "Just because I don't write about what you care about..."

"I guess I'll just have to bring it up, then," I said lackadaisically. "See if I can make it before page 102."

Kathleen made a playful swipe and her fake glare might have been menacing if she wasn't grinning below it.

"And, well, you're aware what's been happening in my life as of late," Nancy chimed in, blushing slightly as she did.

"Ma, how about you?"

"Oh, Derek, you know how it goes," Mom said cheerfully. "I spend all of my time preparing for you people to come over."

We all laughed. At least two of us generally visited once a week, and if anyone hit a rough patch and had to leave the house for a night, Mom always had a bed made up and ready to sleep in.

"So, Der, you had to know it was coming," Candy led. "You have to tell us about what's going on in Seattle!"

"Yeah, Derek, what's it like in the Wild West?" Pamela asked, giggling.

"Well, you probably know that it rains a lot and is much cleaner and less crowded than New York," I teased. "Lots of water. And the views are spectacular."

"Views of what?" Candace whispered to Kathleen, elbowing her. Kathleen smiled demurely, but the age difference between the two sisters could not have been more apparent as in that moment.

"Yeah, Derek, what's this I hear about this intern?" Pam probed.

"Now, Pamela," Mom scolded. "Be respectful. Would your brother ask you the sordid details of your relationship with Greg?"

Pam continued unabashedly. "I hear she's young."

"Not that young," Candace argued. "My age, maybe. At least that's what Der said."

I blushed. "Can we please stop talking about Meredith?"

"Why, Der?" Kathleen said in sing-song. "Don't want to dish about your new girlfriend?" She turned to Nancy. "Does she hold a candle to Addie?"

Nancy turned her eyes to the floor, but her voice kept its normal authoritative tone.

"Lay off of Meredith, girls," she said quietly.

"Why?" Candace asked, a gleam in her eye. Then her face softened. "Unless…?"

I turned to Nancy. "Do they not know?" She shook her head mournfully. My face fell. I was not looking forward to having to tell this story.

"Do we not know what?" Mom asked, finally resuming her seat at the table. Concern wore on her face.

I sighed. "Addison came to Seattle, and…introduced herself to Meredith."

Cries of "What? When?" and "Oh my gosh!" and "What does that have to do with anything?" (the latter coming from Candace) echoed. Only my mother and Nancy remained silent.

"Richard called her out for a case and…I might have told her about Meredith," Nancy muttered, not making eye contact with anyone and playing with her necklace again.

"Okay, so Addie came to wreak havoc," Pamela summed up. "I get that; she's tenacious. But what happened – could Meredith not handle the wife coming back?"

"Meredith…didn't really know there was a wife." I waited for the noise.

"YOU DIDN'T TELL YOUR GIRLFRIEND ABOUT YOUR WIFE?!?!" Candy shrieked, standing up and throwing her chair to the ground. If looks could kill, Pamela would be guilty of murder. Kathleen, curiously, sat, frowning but not overly concerned.

"Derek, you have freaking four sisters, how could you be so STUPID?" Pamela shouted.

"It's not like he expected Addison to just show up," Kathleen said calmly, trying to keep the peace as always. "And it's the kind of news where there's never a convenient time to break it. Tell her in the beginning and you scare her off, and tell her too late and you're accused of keeping secrets."

"The Derek I know would have apologized and done anything to make it up to her." Mom looked at me, expectant, waiting to see if her assessment was correct.

My face went blank. "Actually, that's exactly what I did."

Nancy stepped forward. "And to be fair, Addison was a big bitch about it." My sisters all stared at Nancy, unwilling to believe that Addison's best friend would say that. "Sorry, Mom."

"So…what did she say?" Candace asked quietly, picking up her chair and sitting back down.

"I told her what happened – all of it. I told her I was sorry for hurting her, and…that I loved her."

There was silence. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

"She asked for some space. I tried really hard to give it to her. She wants to try being friends for awhile, to get to know each other without any pressure. That's a small part of the reason I'm back – and to see you guys, of course. I need to just get away for a bit."

"Aw, I'm so proud of you, Der," Kathleen said, hugging me from across the table. It's the best thing you could've done…well, except for the 'not being able to give her space' part. But…oh my gosh, Troy could take some lessons from you."

There was a murmur of assent from around the table…apparently I was the boyfriend all my sisters wanted to be able to have.

"Well, in any case, we're glad you came to visit," Mom said, taking my coffee cup and pecking me on the cheek.

"There is one more reason I came back this weekend," I said, grimacing. This was not going to be fun. "I am taking John Tuttle back with me to Seattle. I'm divorcing Addison."

My sisters gasped as the shockwave travelled down the table. My mother, surprisingly, looked resigned.

"Oh, Derek, the way you talk about Meredith," she said plainly. "It was just a matter of time. It's better now than later."

"Derek, are you sure you want to do this so quickly?" Pam asked. "Are you sure you're not just angry because Addie came to Seattle?"

I nodded my head. "It's been heading this way for awhile – this week I was just reminded of that."

"How does Addison feel about this?" Kathleen asked, always analyzing.

"She's in denial, of course. She says she wants to try again and she won't accept the fact that I want a divorce. She doesn't really have a choice in the matter, though."

"What happens if she refuses?" Candace asked, absentmindedly playing with a placemat.

"Then Derek takes Addie to court, and I tell the judge that Addison admitted the affair to me," Nancy sighed.

Everyone stared at Nancy. No one knew what to say.

"What?" she snapped defensively. "I know she's my friend, but he's my brother!"

"Well, thank you for putting family first, Nancy," Mom said. "I know this must be painful for you."

I yawned loudly. "Well, that was a really long flight and I'm pretty tired."

"But of course," Mom said, rising from her chair. "Derek, you're set up in the first bedroom on the left. And we'll make sure to keep the kids out of your room." She winked.

"Thanks, Mom," I said, hugging her short frame. "For everything."

"Good night, Derek," she whispered back.

---

_I am standing at the edge of the cliff on my land, overlooking Eliot Bay. There is not a cloud in the sky. The sun is shining bright, and though there is a crisp breeze in the air, Seattle is more beautiful than I have ever seen it. It is early spring, and though I've never been in Seattle in the springtime, I am amazed at how vibrant all of the trees and grass and flowers are._

_ String music floats gently on the breeze. I look down, and find that I am wearing a tuxedo. I hear soft footsteps behind me. I turn around, slowly._

_ Mark, my former best friend, is smiling and beckoning me, motioning for me to join him. With him is a younger brunette woman, whose dark eyes are alive with happiness. He's wearing a tuxedo, and she's wearing a lavender gown. Even though I know it's Mark, I feel no hatred. I follow him._

_ He escorts me to a floral arch, lavishly decorated with lavender roses. I stand there, waiting. A man I do not know beams at me. I smile back, and then notice, for the first time, that there are others. Mark stands behind me, with Alex Karev and red-headed man I do not recognize._

_ Dozens of people, sitting on folding chairs in front of me, ready for a show. I recognize my mother, my sisters, and their families. But there are others, too._

_ There are doctors from Seattle Grace that I know. But there are more faces that I do not know._

_ And suddenly, the string quartet I had forgotten begins to play again, and all eyes turn to a copse of trees behind all of the chairs. Then, I realize…I am at a wedding._

_ Three women emerge from the copse. One of them is the younger woman who was with Mark. Izzie Stevens follows. And then Cristina Yang._

_ I know who will appear next. My heart swells to an impossible size in my chest, and the anticipation is almost too much._

_ And then…I wake up._

---

"UNCLE DEREK, UNCLE DEREK, YOU'RE BACK!" I opened my eyes to three very-awake young children bouncing on my bed. Lindsey, Erica, and Katy – three of my many nieces – were very happy to see me.

"Shh, guys, keep it down," I whispered in my best fun voice.

"Mommy says that you been sleep for long nuff," Lindsey said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Mommy said, that, huh?" I asked, rolling the girl on her back and tickling her. She giggled, along with her sister and cousin. I made a mental note to thank Nancy for the wake-up call.

Pamela walked into the open door, jiggling Billy, her 13-month-old, on her hip. "Hey, girls, guess what? Grandma says it's time for breakfast, and she made blueberry pancakes!"

And that finished it. The three girls raced out of the bedroom and down the stairs more quickly than I would think safe. Pamela leaned against the door way.

Pamela had always been the quiet one in a cast of characters. Kathleen was the helpful one, always giving advice and playing the little mother. Nancy was the trendsetter, and her word was law. If Kathleen was the mother, Nancy was definitely the father. She made sure we each knew her opinion on what she thought we all should do with ourselves – how to dress, how to act, what to say. Candace was the bubbly baby, making friends with everything and everybody. I was the dorky, sensitive brother. Pamela, though intelligent and creative, was more shy than the rest of us and people often tended to forget that she was there.

But now, I saw that it made her a better mother to her children. Though she certainly had her own personality, she made her children the highlight as she faded into the background, giving them plenty of room. Pam was always the quiet cheerleader, supporting us as we took a more active role.

My heart stung as I realized that I could imagine Meredith standing right next to Pam, baby on her hip.

_No, no, no, Derek. You're friends. Shake that thought from your head._

"No need to rush, Der, Mom's got your cinnamon ones cooking now," Pam said, waking me from my reverie. "Though you might consider showering before you come downstairs."

"Mmm, good point," I sat up and put my feet over the side of the bed groggily. "I'll be down soon."

Breakfast at Mom's when the whole family was there was always an event. The kitchen table that was the source of much gossip was kept the adult table while the kids were in the dining room. My older nieces and nephew were charged with babysitting, and it provided us all with a chance to relax and enjoy each other.

I quickly showered, dressed, and made myself presentable to stroll downstairs. To my complete surprise, EVERYBODY was showered, dressed, and awake when I got down there. Had I really slept almost twelve hours?

"Well, if it isn't Sleeping Beauty!" Candace proclaimed as I walked, dumfounded, into the kitchen. She placed a plate stacked high with pancakes in my hand. "Finally, we might be able to get this show on the road!"

Reading my puzzled expression, Mom stepped in.

"The girls and I are going out shopping – you need some new clothes, you didn't take that many with you when you left. And we have to get some groceries for dinner tonight." She smiled at her family around her. "And since we normally have a family Halloween, I figured this year you and the guys could take the kids out to get their costumes together."

Normally, every Halloween, we all gathered at my mother's house for Halloween. We'd all dress the kids and take them around the neighborhood, and after we got back and put them to bed, we'd commence our own celebration. Of course, since Candace, Addie, and I didn't have children, we'd rotate being the candy-passer-outers. In pairs. Last year, it had been unfortunate enough to be that Candy and Addie were paired together. Neither got along very well.

I rolled my eyes, but agreed. "When do we leave?"

"As soon as you finish." My brother-in-law closest in age, Greg, came out of the dining room where the kids were finishing up their breakfasts. "Welcome home, buddy." He clasped my hand and shook it firmly.

"Well, I guess I'd better get started, then," I smiled, turning to my breakfast.

---

We all split up and Greg, Troy, Rob, and I took the boatload of kids to the Halloween Store. With fourteen kids and four men, Greg and I each got three while Troy and Rob took four since most of the kids were theirs.

In my care were Katy, Lindsey, and Bethany, who my brothers referred to as the "Uncle Derek Fan Club". As I followed my brothers in Pamela's Toyota Camry with three carseats in back, they were asking all forms of random questions because they were so excited.

"What should I be?" Bethany asked excitedly. "I wanna be Mariah Carey!"

"I don't think Mommy would like that very much," I smiled. "How about you be a rock star?"

"Yeah, Uncle Derek!" she said excitedly.

"How about you, Lindsey?" I asked indulgently. "What do you want to be?"

"I want to be Hermione," she said primly. "Like Harry Potter."

"Ooh, that'll be fun," I replied. "How about you, Katy?"

"Princess bride." She said it blankly, without any excitement. I frowned.

"You okay, Katy Kat?" I asked.

She nodded, but she didn't seem okay. Maybe once I had the other girls occupied with costumes, I could figure out what was up.

When we finally got there, Troy, as oldest father, rallied the troops.

"Okay, kids, make sure you stay with your adult," he said sternly. "We don't want ANYBODY to get lost. Listen to what your dads or uncles say." He bounced his littlest girl, Jenna, in her Snugli. Then, to the rest of us, "Okay, guys, we'll meet back here in about an hour and a half. We've all got each other's numbers?" We all nodded in unison. "Let's go."

It was all I could do to keep them from dashing off.

"Let's all hold hands," I reminded them. They reluctantly clasped hands and we set off into a veritable wonderland of costumes.

Right away I saw a section for magic. The witch things that we needed for Lindsey's costume would probably be there.

"Lindsey, let's find you a magic wand and a cauldron you can put candy in!" I said excitedly.

Lindsey's eyes widened as she looked at all the wands, from a classic Harry Potter wood wand to a pink sparkly one to one whose tip lit up when you waved it. Being a little girl, of course, she seized upon the sparkly one and I added it to the basket, along with a small cauldron that would not be too difficult for a four-year-old to carry.

We kept wandering until I found a floral tiara that would be perfect to hold Katy's vale.

"How about this, Katy?" I asked, placing it on my own head to try and get a laugh.

Katy simply nodded solemnly. It wasn't like her. I put it in the basket and hoped that she would lighten up soon. We spent the next forty minutes wandering the store, finding more costume elements and putting them in the basket. Bethany was found squealing over a prepackaged rock star costume that she absolutely _had_ to have. One down, one and a half to go.

We ended up finding a black cloak and a red Catholic school uniform to complete Lindsey's Hermione costume, so all we needed to find was a scepter, gown, and veil for Katy, who so far was remaining unengaged in the process.

"Ooh, look Katy, a medieval section!" I tried in vain to get her excited. "I bet we'll find what we need there!"

At this point, Lindsey and Bethany were getting bored and wanted to get to the checkout line, where they knew I would buy them each a candy bar, so they were also trying to help Katy put together her costume.

"Here's a pretty sticky-mabob!" Lindsey ran over, brandishing a paste jewel scepter for her older sister. Katy simply took it and put it in the basket. Bethany managed to find a lovely white veil, and put that in the basket, too.

"Okay, kiddo," I said, exasperated. "All's that's left is the gown, and since I don't know your size you're going to have to try one on."

Katy had gone from being expressionless to glaring at me. Puzzled, I picked up a white fairy princess dress in a youth extra small and escorted the girls to the dressing rooms.

"Can you put that dress on by yourself, or do you want Lindsey to come in and help you?" I asked. Katy simply shut the door. I took that as my answer.

"Uncle Derek, I need to go potty!" Bethany whined.

"Well, I can't leave Katy in there alone," I thought aloud. "Tell you what, the bathrooms are right around the corner, you go with Lindsey and then you two come and meet me RIGHT back here."

"Okay, Uncle Derek!" The girls giggled and ran off. Since I'd be able to hear them, I wasn't too worried about the two going by themselves.

I leaned against the wall of the dressing room, thinking about asking Katy what was wrong but deciding to leave it. I waited for five minutes before I heard a piercing scream coming from the bathroom.

Panicked, I ran over to see what was the matter. Bethany was sitting on the floor of the bathroom on a puddle, with Lindsey trying to pull her arm up.

"What's going on here?" I shouted.

"She was running and she fell," Lindsey told me as Bethany sat, whimpering, on the floor. She pointed, indicating the puddle, and stopped hauling on Bethany's arm. I scooped the little girl up and put her, upright, on the floor.

_Damn janitors,_ I thought. _They could at least put out a wet floor sign_.

"You okay?" I knelt, asking Bethany on her level. She wiped her eyes, nodding, and her crying dulled. "Okay, let's go check on Katy and see how pretty she looks in her princess dress."

I walked out with the two girls to see the door to the dressing room open, with no Katy inside. Her street clothes were still there. My heart skipped a beat.

"Katy!" I called. "Where are you?"

No answer.

"KATY!" Lindsey screamed. "YOU BAD GIRL, COME BACK!"

"Shh," I shushed. "We have to go find your little sister."

Suddenly, Greg appeared from around the corner.

"Hey, Derek, how's it going?" he asked cheerfully, all three kids in tow. "We're just about…"

"We have a runaway bride situation," I interrupted.

"What?" he asked, confused, silently tallying the kids I had with me. "Where's Katy?"

"I left her alone for ten seconds when Beth screamed, and she's gone. She's been weird all day."

"Here, I'll take Lindsey and Bethany so you can go look for her."

"Thanks, Greg."

"Good luck, Der."

I started searching every aisle frantically in the vain hope that Katy was hiding in plain sight. Maybe she'd come out to find me not there, so she went to look for me.

After ten minutes of frantic search, I was up at the front of the store prepared to start looking under every display when I saw Rob.

"Hey, Derek, we just checked out. Is something wrong?"

I sighed. "Katy was changing into a dress and Bethany screamed. I went to check her for ten seconds and Katy wandered off."

"Wait just a second," Rob said, his voice rising. "You mean to tell me you lost my daughter?"

"What was I supposed to do?" I argued. "Stay there? Beth could've been hurt!"

"Derek!" I heard Greg's voice call from across the store. "We found her!"

Rob leapt into action to go see his daughter in person. I herded Rob's kids towards the back of the store.

Katy was hiding in the cardboard castle that surrounded the medieval display.

"Katy, honey, are you okay?" Rob asked, frantic.

"No," she said angrily.

"What happened, sweetie, are you hurt?"

She glared at me, and pointed. "You made Aunt Addie go away."

My face went white. Rob blinked, and scooped up the little girl.

"What did you say?" he asked his daughter, dumbfounded.

"He made Aunt Addie go away." She pouted.

"Princess," I crouched to her level. "Aunt Addie wanted to go away. She still loves you very much, but she needed to go away."

"We were going to play dress-up next time she was here," Katy sniffled. "Now you're here, and she's gone."

"I'm sorry, hon," I said, kissing her forehead. "But I love you very much. And so does Aunt Addie."

"And nothing makes running away like that okay," her father added sternly. "Now apologize to Uncle Derek for making him worry and calling him names."

Katy shuffled her foot against the floor. "Sorry, Uncle Derek."

I hugged the little girl. "As long as the princess is okay." I scooped her up and grinned. "Now, what kind of chocolate does Katy like?"

---

All of the kids left the store with Halloween costumes, and after an unhealthy but delicious mass lunch at McDonald's, we brought them back to the house so the little ones could take naps until the girls got home. After getting beaten on five times in a row by my nephews, Freddie and Bobby, at Madden, I retreated upstairs to the kitchen to share a beer with my brothers-in-law.

"Derek, man, I'm so sorry," Rob said, handing me a cold Corona.

"Really, Rob, it's not a big deal," I said. "We found her and that's the important part."

Rob blinked. "Oh…well, actually, I meant about Addison."

I sighed. "Yes, that. Well, you know, it was one of those inevitable things, I suppose."

"So I hear there's someone new?" Troy asked conspiratorially.

"There _was_," I corrected. "Meredith. Things…kind of fell apart a little after I told her about the marriage." While I could talk candidly with my sisters about the situation with Meredith, I just didn't feel as comfortable around my brothers. They would get the abridged version.

"Dude, I'm sorry," Greg said, taking a swig of his beer. "How are things in Seattle otherwise?"

Seattle, in my mind, was so closely linked with Meredith I could scarcely separate the two.

"Things are okay." I shrugged. "Less money and more hours, but the cases are definitely more interesting and I get to work with some of the best surgeons in the country…none that are quite my caliber of course."

The guys all laughed. None of the other guys were doctors – Troy was the president of a bank, Rob was a professional chef, and Greg was a lawyer – but being married to doctors, they did understand a lot of what went on, in both private practice and hospitals.

I then heard the garage door open, meaning that my mother and sisters must be home. Sure enough, the mud room door opened moments later, followed by women with handfuls of shopping bags.

My mother entered first, hands full of four bags that she proceeded to shove into my arms.

"They're all for you, dear," she panted, moving out of the way for Pam who came in next. "You took so little to Seattle with you."

"Thanks, Mom," I groaned, rolling my eyes. I set the bags on the ground and started peeling through them. A suit jacket and pants. Plain gray tees and button-downs, all with designer labels. Jeans and sweaters. All sorts of clothing. "How am I going to get this all back? I only brought a little rolling bag.

Pam unloaded a large suitcase onto the kitchen table.

"Taken care of." My younger sister admired her purchase.

"Don't just thank me," Mom reprimanded. "Your sisters helped pick some things out, too."

Kathleen and Nancy slipped in with their own bags, which all looked fit to burst.

"Yes, if anything he's gotten a bit thinner since he left, so everything should fit fine," Kath mused, looking me up and down. Nance nodded.

"And Derek, you're eating enough out there?" Mom asked sternly.

I shook my head – it was like a bad stereotype. "Of course Mom."

Greg tried to stifle a laugh, only to be elbowed by Pam.

"Hey," I said, something dawning on me. "Where's Candace?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing." Nancy frowned. "We thought she was with you."

"We thought you girls all went together," Troy argued, shaking his head. "It was just us and the kids."

"Hmmm," Mom hummed. "Strange…her car's not here, either."

"Did she tell you guys where she was going?" Rob asked.

They all shook their heads.

"She's an adult," Pam sighed, collapsing into a chair. "I'm sure she'll be back for dinner."

"That reminds me," Mom said, walking over to the table. "Pam, Rob and Kathleen have to help me start making dinner."

Pam moaned, but got up out of the chair. The other two picked up the grocery bags Kathleen had brought in and moved to the other side of the island. Nancy, meanwhile, resumed Pam's place at the table – Nancy was the only female in the family who never had to help make dinner. After all, there was a reason she had married a chef.

"So, Derek lost your daughter today," Greg said to fill the silence.

Nancy's eyes shot over to me. "You did _what_?"

"Hey," I went to defend myself. "Katy was in a bad mood today, about Addison not being here. So I left her in a dressing room for fifteen seconds because Beth screamed, and when I came back she was gone. We found her in ten minutes. Everything's fine." I glared at Greg. Closest to me in age, Greg was a fun-loving prankster, but at times like these it was easy to remember why sometimes his antics got old.

"Keep up the way you're going, little brother," Nance warned. "And I won't be testifying for you for _anything_."

All of a sudden, the mud room door opened again, and Candace appeared in the doorway.

"Hey," Troy said, peeking around the corner. "Where were you, and what were you doing?"

Candy gave Troy a sideways look, and smiled. "Catching up with an old friend," she said mysteriously, and then a smile lit up her face. "Speaking of which," she exclaimed, stepping to the side, "look who I found!"

And Candace's body gave way to reveal a tall man standing in the garage, adorned in a leather jacket and jeans. He was familiar…infuriatingly familiar. A scowl worked its way to my mouth.

Because the bold man standing on my mother's doorstep was none other than Mark Sloan.

---

_McIntern: Bet you didn't see that coming! I just wanted to show you how good Derek is with kids (he's gonna make an excellent father someday =P) and I figured I should reward you guys with a little bit of drama. Poor Derek, though, he can't seem to catch a break. Anyways, I'm working to have a little something for you by Sunday night, fingers crossed!_


	15. Chapter 15: Live and Let Die

_Author's Note: I apologize, guys! First thing I apologize for is going so long without an update – I've been super bogged down with work and just couldn't find time to keep writing. Second, this chapter is kind of filler material – I didn't find myself very motivated to write about Derek in New York (read: Derek without Meredith) so I kind of just wrapped it up as quickly as possible. I did try to sneak in some fun parts, though, to learn some more about Derek in his med school days. Third, I'd like to know what you guys would think of me starting to do some chapters from Meredith's perspective – the story would still mainly be Derek's, but maybe every once in awhile I'd let Meredith tell her side of the story. It occurred to me while watching the episodes that there are a lot of important things that happen in the storyline that Derek isn't directly involved in but still should be portrayed. So let me know what you'd think of that._

**Chapter 15 – Live and Let Die**

I bit back against the bile rising in my throat, and some part of my brain noticed that my brothers-in-law were all quietly retreating from the room.

Mark was standing in my mother's kitchen, hands in pockets and grinning, as if he had never slept with my wife and he was still welcome here.

Nancy's eyes narrowed and shot from Mark to Candace.

"What were you thinking, bringing him here?" she hissed.

Candace pouted. "He's family – c'mon, Der knows."

I swallowed and considered my words. "Last time I checked, family didn't sleep with each other," I said coolly, looking Mark directly in the eye. His features fell – what had he been expecting? I then rounded on my sister.

"What are you even _doing_ talking to him?" I asked incredulously.

"We were having lunch, we were talking," she shot back, her normally laid-back demeanor gone. "Just because you two are going at it doesn't mean I can't still be friends with him."

"Friends with benefits is more like it," Pamela murmured.

Nancy glared at Pamela, and then back to Candace, and then finally softened at Mark.

"There was a time when he would have been welcome in our house, but not anymore. You can't keep doing this." I wasn't sure whether she was talking to Candace or Mark.

Mark, to his credit, looked genuinely remorseful.

"Derek," he said, addressing me across the room. "If I could take it back, I would. You've gotta believe me."

I regarded him coldly. I didn't have it in me to talk to Mark again.

"Mark," my mother said, tears glistening in her eyes. "You can't be here right now." She pushed a plate of food into his hands, the only thing she would still allow herself to do for him, and retreated back to the sink, where she pretended that the running water would mask the fact that she was crying.

Candace sighed upon seeing that the anger hadn't left my face, and then turned to Mark.

"C'mon, I'll drive you back," she said, her hand around his arm, guiding him, though Candace was tiny.

As soon as they'd left, I turned to the rest of my family.

"Just what in the hell was that?" I spat.

"She actually took the breakup with Sergio really hard," Kathleen explained. "And I guess…she just fell into it with Mark."

"We've all done it at some point or another," Nancy was quick to point out.

I tried really hard not to think of all four of my sisters rebounding with my best friend.

"I thought she said she was looking for commitment," I argued. "So she goes to Mark?"

Pamela looked to my mother, still crying, and then back to me. "Derek, it's not like she's looking for a relationship with Mark. It's more of a comfort thing. A return to the familiar."

"I just can't believe you, I can't believe any of you!" I pushed through to the mud room and grabbed my coat. I had to get out of this house and figure out what was happening with the life I thought I knew.

_Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, August 1990_

_We were late for our first class of medical school, Gross Anatomy. Even though I was incredibly excited to be finally starting on the path to a career as a doctor, I was shaking as Mark and I waited to cross the street to get to the old brick building that housed the anatomy lab. At Bowdoin as a biology major, I had learned about the complex interactions that go on in the human body – but this would be my first time actually exploring it._

_ "Geez Derek, don't get your panties in a bunch," Mark said, confidently stepping out in front of a car to cross the street. The car stopped short and honked, but Mark paid no attention – he grew up in the heart of the city and his confidence was palpable. "They're just a bunch of old dead bodies."_

_ "Do you realize that how well we do in this class could determine our entire futures?" I asked, jogging to keep up. "It's real now, Mark."_

_ "We'll be fine," he said dismissively with a wave of his hand._

_ "I can't believe you made us late." I rechecked the typewritten schedule in my hand – the lab was in the basement, so I pushed the door open to the staircase and began the descent. "I mean really, Mark, was the night before the first day of medical school really a good night to go pick up some random girl from the bar?"_

_ "Just takin' the edge off," Mark said defensively. "You seem like you could have used it yourself."_

_ "It should be right down this hall…it's room 031." Sure enough, it was at the end of the hallway._

_ The cavernous old room was cold and smelled of formaldehyde. The old professor was already scribbling away at the board, clearly paying no attention at the ten students besides Mark and I filtering in late. Each table had two chairs – and a cadaver. Most of the tables had already been filled, but there were some with only one person seated._

_ "Looks like we're gonna be separated," I whispered. Mark shrugged._

_ "I'm heading towards the back," he replied, and turned to go that way._

_ Wanting to get started on the right foot, I quietly made my way to the front. I had seen an empty spot at a table and was determined to hear what the professor was saying._

_ The empty seat at the front was next to a pretty red-headed woman who was intent on hearing this man's every word – so intent, in fact, that she didn't even look over when I sat down next to her. She looked incredibly polished and well-dressed, with what had to be a fresh manicure – odd for an anatomy class. Wearing her designer glasses to better read the board, she still squinted to try and make out the professor's chicken-scratch handwriting._

_ Even though the girl was paying absolutely no attention to me, her appearance made me incredibly self-conscious. With the recent trends making it obvious that big hair was in, I had learned to tame my unruly curly hair into a style that was somewhat socially acceptable. Apart from that, though, I had wandered into Gross Anatomy wearing my Bowdoin sweatshirt and jeans. I felt like the bar had just been raised._

_ I found myself completely tuning the professor out and staring at the girl beside me. By the end of class, I had learned absolutely nothing except for her name – Addison._

_ I met Mark on the way out of class – we shared an apartment so we were heading the same way anyway._

_ "Damn Shepherd, who was that fox you were sitting next to?" Mark asked excitedly. "You should definitely introduce me."_

_ "We'll see about that," I thought, smiling. Addison seemed intelligent, sophisticated, and focused, which Mark had never really come up against before. Me, on the other hand…_

After I'd stalked up and down the street a few times, I decided to go back to the yard and I sat in the garden on a park bench my dad had made a long time ago.

I was definitely still harboring some resentment towards Mark, but what was Candace doing? I was only mildly upset that she was with him, since apparently my sisters passed him around on a regular basis, but why now? She knew the story…

And then there was Mom. Mom couldn't help herself – though she stood by me, Mark was still almost her son, and it hurt her to have to turn him away. She would do it, for me – but it hurt her.

Kathleen came out so quietly I hadn't even noticed until she was sitting right next to me.

"I'm not in the mood for psychoanalysis right now," I said bluntly.

"No one's ever in the mood," Kathy murmured, "but it helps regardless."

"What was she doing?" I asked.

"Candace is impulsive," Kathleen said breezily. "She does what feels good, now. She loves you, Der, but when Candy is hurting she doesn't think about other people. Mark's always been sweet to her but until recently she's always been your kid sister. Now she's older and – Mark tries to have self-control but it's hard when she's practically throwing herself at him."

"Do you think that's what happened with Addison?" I asked her, point-blank.

"We both know Addison was craving attention," she said quietly. "Mark was there and Mark's more or less always been there – it was all at once familiar and exciting for her. She had all this pent-up frustration and she knew he could be a good outlet."

"Am I always going to be the bad guy?" I asked wearily.

"Derek, you're not the bad guy." Kathleen wrapped me in a warm embrace – she was known for her great hugs. "Everyone made mistakes. You and Addison should have worked harder at your marriage. Addison should have communicated her concerns to you and not dealt with it by sleeping with Mark. Mark should have resisted. Candace should have respected your feelings. We should have listened to you the first time. You should have ended it with Addison before starting with Meredith…" She trailed off. "You have earned the right to be angry. You made mistakes but you were the one who ended up getting burned. You're allowed to be pissed that Candace brought Mark over. You just have to recognize that you aren't the only one impacted by this. We all are. We all have to adjust."

I nodded and sighed.

"So how long has Candace been with Mark?" I asked. It made me sick to my stomach but I had to know.

"She's not _with_ him," Kathy reminded. "But they've hooked up a couple times this week."

"Great." I rolled my eyes.

Kathleen watched me quietly for a moment, considering something, before she spoke.

"You're not really angry with Mark, are you?" she asked, as a shadow passed over my face. "I mean, you are, but you're being awfully reactive. You're angry at yourself."

The combination of Shepherd intuition and a psychiatric fellowship made Kathleen a practical mind reader. There was no keeping secrets from my eldest sister.

"I want to make her happy, and all she wants is to be left alone," I whispered. "And even though that's all I want to do for her, I can't. She's pushing me away and pulling me in at the same time, and I can't even figure out which way is up anymore."

"Nancy said you promised to leave her alone for awhile," she said after a pause. "She's right, you know. Space would be good for both of you. You need to untangle all of this and figure out which way is up, because I don't think any of us can go through this again."

"I wanted to figure it out here, away from Meredith and Addison. I really thought I could here, and then Mark shows up and all I can see is red. I'm right back to where I started."

"You may think that, but you're not," she said, stroking my hand. "I can hear it in your voice – you're not even blaming Addison anymore. You've known Mark longer, so that's going to take more time to heal. You're not going to figure out where you are with Meredith until you make peace with _yourself_."

Kathleen stood up.

"You can stay out here as long as you need, we'll save you a plate."

_It wasn't until the cardiac anatomy lab that I worked up the nerve to talk to Addison about anything unrelated to cadavers._

_I found that I took to gross anatomy quickly, making clean and efficient cuts without harming anything we might need to identify for a lab practical. Addison was better than the other students, but still not as adept with a scalpel as I was, so while she would certainly do some of the dissection she tended to leave the finer points to me._

_Something was off about our cadaver's heart, though, and we were both peering attentively in to try and spot the defect._

"_I think it's his mitral valve," she announced after a very long minute had gone by. "It seems thicker."_

"_Maybe it's why he died." I was still comparing the heart to illustrated valves in the textbook._

"_I'm going to go look at someone else's," she offered. "See if it looks different from ours."_

_I was ashamed of the fact that my eyes were planted squarely on Addison's ass as she wandered over to Mark's corpse. I cursed silently in my head. As always, Mark was going to get the girl and I would have to figure out some way to kill two hours outside of the apartment. There was a quiet café a couple of blocks from the library…_

_I looked up with the rest of the class when I heard the squeal and the sharp smack echo from the back of the lab. The professor, busily grading the practical from last week, took no notice._

_Mark stood there, looking shell-shocked, as Addison stormed back towards me, fuming. I hastily looked back at the heart when the clicking of her heels approached the lab table._

"_Is he your friend?" she asked behind gritted teeth._

"_Nah, he's just some guy from back home I ended up having to room with." I momentarily felt bad for lying – then, remembering Mark had done much worse in trying to land a conquest, I swallowed the guilt._

"_Do all men inappropriately fondle women's asses where you come from?" she looked up at me, glaring._

"_No, that's pretty much limited to him."_

_Her expression softened as I looked into her piercing eyes._

"_Good," she declared. "Because it would really spoil the date you're about to ask me on if you did."_

_And for the first time, I was thankful with every fiber of my being that I wasn't Mark Sloan._

When I finally went inside, an hour later, Mom was the only one in the kitchen, sitting at the table and drinking her favorite Earl Grey tea.

I sat down next to her.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I sighed. "I know this has been hard on you."

She looked up at me and smiled, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She folded her hand over mine.

"Derek, you know I just want all of my kids to be happy," she said. "I don't mind you living in Seattle, if that's where happiness is for you. I just wish it hadn't happened, and it hadn't been Mark."

"I'd still be getting divorced – maybe not now, but sooner or later."

"Derek, do you really think I don't know that?" She exhaled deeply. "I don't want to say 'I told you so', but Addison was never the one for you."

I was struck dumb. "So you went eleven years thinking Addison wasn't the right woman for me and never said anything?"

"Derek," she sighed. She looked past me, out the screen door, and then back into my eyes. I had her eyes. "Just because she wasn't the right one didn't mean you weren't happy for awhile. And even if you weren't happy, you had to figure that out for yourself. Think about it – if I had told you not to marry Addison, what would you have said?"

I saw the logic in her argument. "I wouldn't have listened. I would have thought you were being difficult."

"Exactly." She paused to add some more sugar to her tea and then gave it a stir. "That's why I never say anything about Candace. I have to let you kids make your own mistakes, because otherwise you won't learn. Your father always felt very strongly about that."

"So what's going to happen with Mark?" I asked tentatively.

"That's up to you," she said evenly. "You're my son – Mark is like a son to me, but at the end of the day, _you_ are my son. When you forgive Mark, I'll welcome him back with open arms – and, of course, a stern talking-to."

"You mean _if_ I forgive Mark," I said pointedly.

"No, Derek, don't you see?" She looked at me again. "You're _my_ son – so it's only a matter of time."

The rest of the weekend proceeded smoothly. Candace had to go back to work anyway, but the tension her presence would have brought was not missed by anyone. I spent quality time with my brothers-in-law, nieces, and nephews, as well as my remaining sisters.

Nancy volunteered to pick John up and drive us both to the airport.

When we pulled up to the entrance of Tuttle, Harrison, and Miller, I was struck by how much older John Tuttle looked than the last time I saw him. Granted, the last time I saw him was more than two years ago at a charity ball, but those two years seemed to take an enormous toll on the man's frame.

I got out to help John load his bags into the back and shook his hand.

"Derek," he said, hefting a large suitcase into the trunk. "It's been such a long time – though I wish it was under better circumstances."

"Believe me, John, you have no idea." I shook my head.

"If it's any consolation, I just had to go through the same thing last year with Eleanor – and it was a nasty one. Just be glad you don't have any kids to involve."

"I'm so sorry, John."

"Don't be," he brushed off the sympathy. "Things were over a long time ago. I wasn't all that surprised when she left me for her assistant. But I got custody."

I stared at his face, devoid of much emotion, but quickly snapped back when John shut the back door and got in the backseat on the driver's side.

"Nancy," he nodded at my sister. "I haven't seen you since graduation. You look well."

"Why thank you, John," Nancy said, picking up her normal calculating voice.

I'd met John in the library at Columbia as he studied constitutional law and I studied pathology. We forged a friendship over coffee, beer, and graduate-level coursework. I knew that whenever Mark locked me out of the apartment, I'd always have a place to go if John was home. Our last year at Columbia, he even moved in with us.

"So, Derek, if you don't mind, could you start from the beginning so I can get a handle on where we stand with this?"

I told him the long story, skipping over some of the psychological torture and lust.

"Well, Nancy, as noble as your intentions are," John said, "I'm afraid that we can't use your testimony in a court of law. It'll be dismissed as hearsay since you didn't actually witness the affair."

Nancy sighed – although she had promised to help, the thought of testifying against the woman who had been her best friend for more than a decade was weighing heavily on her.

"So if she contests, what are my options?" I asked testily.

"Well, you can of course testify to walking in on them," he said carefully, "but due to the circumstances, it probably won't carry much weight."

I eyed him quizzically.

"Her lawyer's going to say you're trying to get a share of her trust fund, and that you invented the affair so that you could get at it."

"That's absurd. I don't need Addison's money."

"That's not how they'll see it. Did you sign a prenuptial agreement?"

"No…"

"Then technically, you could stand to get some of it in the event of a divorce."

"But it's not about the money."

"Unfortunately," John said, cocking an eyebrow, "that's what they all say."

"What else are we left with?"

"If we can't get her to sign the papers, then you'll have to take her to court for a separation – it's easier to prove adultery for a separation trial than for a divorce trial. Or we can try to get her to agree to a separation outside of court – either way you're looking at a year before the divorce is finalized."

"So what you're saying is that if she doesn't agree to divorce me, I'll still be legally married for another year?"

"Unfortunately, New York doesn't recognize 'irreconcilable differences' as a valid reason for ending a marriage," John explained. "And I don't want you to worry about this until you have to. I've contacted Addison's lawyer and we have a meeting set up in a couple of days."

"Addison has a lawyer already?" I asked, incredulous.

John tried to stifle laughter. "Yeah, it would seem that Archer has had a divorce lawyer on retainer ever since the two of you got married."

Addison's brother, Archer, was a neurologist a couple of years older than me. He'd been very vocally against our relationship from the beginning, and even after the wedding had made it very obvious that he didn't like me. Among Archer's claims were that I was after Addison for her money, I'd gotten her pregnant, and that I was holding her back from her potential. The fact that Archer had paid some lawyer thousands of dollars over the course of eleven years on the off chance Addison decided to leave me was not at all surprising.

Nancy pulled up to the terminal, and kissed me before I got out to retrieve my bags and help John with his.

"Do me a favor, Derek," she said softly. "Let her down easy."

I smiled at my older sister. "I'll do the best I can."

I got out of the car and grabbed my suitcase and one of John's duffels. As we walked into the airport lobby, I smiled at him.

"Sounds like we're in for a good fight."


	16. Chapter 16: You Keep Me Hangin' On

_Author's Note: I am on a roll here. Don't have much to say, but I hope to get some more chapters done this week for your reading pleasure._

**Chapter 16 – You Keep Me Hangin' On**

The next morning, I was back at work and John was checked into the Archfield Hotel by the hospital. John, like everyone else I associated with in New York, was used to a certain lifestyle – and staying in a friend's trailer did not fit in with that expectation. And since I was at the hospital most of the time anyway, staying at the conveniently close Archfield would benefit both of us.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I tried to end my phone call with John.

"Remember Derek, we have a meeting with Addison and her lawyer in my room at the hotel's conference room at 5:30," he said pointedly. "That means no getting pulled into surgery, no last checks on patients, that means you are here in this room at 5:30."

"Yes, dear," I sighed.

"I mean it, Derek, there are at least three other attendings in your department – use them."

"I'll be there, John," I vowed. "You know no one wants this to be done as much as I do."

"Then I guess I'll be seeing you at 5:30."

I affirmed that and hung up the phone. It was time to see what kind of mess had been left in the wake of my absence.

I glanced at my watch. I was running a half hour earlier than usual. I grinned – maybe today was going to be a good day after all.

Somehow I miraculously made it onto the elevator immediately after getting my coffee. I could count on two hands the number of times that had happened since I started working at Seattle Grace. Maybe it was a sign that this wouldn't be my only victory today. I pressed the button for the surgical floor and the doors started to close when someone stuck their folding file in the door.

As the doors opened again, I stared. The person attached to the folding file was Richard, wearing the ugliest black leather fedora I'd ever seen in my life.

I couldn't help myself. As he entered, I stared at the hat. And then at him. And back at the hat. Why was he here? He should have been at home resting, because he sure as hell wasn't ready to begin operating again.

I waited until he pressed the button. He cleared his throat, waiting for me to say something. Apparently staring isn't subtle.

"Nice hat," I said as sincerely as possible.

He glared at me.

"Shut up."

I smirked. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm going back to work."

I looked back at the ugly hat, under which the edge of Richard's bandage contrasted sharply against his dark skin. _Yeah, fat chance,_ I thought.

"I haven't cleared you for surgery."

"Leave me alone," he whined. "I've been sitting at home for a week, watching Oprah give away things on TV."

I glanced at him, and then the woman behind us, who was giggling.

"Oprah, Derek," he looked at me, pleading with his eyes. I had a feeling that though he wasn't mentioning it, Adele may have something to do with Richard's desire to come back to work as much as Oprah.

I took a sip of my coffee, making no indication of a response. The reality was that it takes at the _very_ least two weeks to recover from a craniotomy as involved as Richard's, and that was the best case scenario. Richard knew it, too. I'd be more comfortable waiting at least another week before even examining him again. But as Chief, he was going to do his best to bully his way back into the OR, regardless of my evaluation.

"So I guess you wouldn't know if anything important happened while I was gone?" I asked casually.

"You clear me now or I'll hurt you." What did I tell you about the bullying? But I could bully, too.

"If you want me to clear you so soon, maybe you should have thought about that before you gave Chief to Burke and invited Satan to Seattle."

"Satan?"

The doors opened behind us, and I heard the click of heels. Worse yet, a bright "good morning" made me whip my head around only to see Addison entering the elevator behind us.

"Richard, like the hat," she cooed, gently stroking the brim. Richard turned to me. _I told you so._

I glanced over. "Satan speaks."

"Actually," she said, "I prefer to be called Ruler of All That Is Evil." Richard chuckled, and I glared at him. "But I will answer to Satan." She shot me a look.

"What is she still doing here?" I asked Richard, ignoring the witty commentary.

"I asked her to stay," he said matter-of-factly. "We have a pediatric surgery attending on maternity leave…"

"Actually, I could use you on a consult. I've got a neonate with a spinal mass." Her eyes were soft and sympathetic. I looked to Richard, who shot me a warning glance, and then looked back to Addison. "Will you, uh, meet me up there, Derek?" She pointed upwards, where the neonatal intensive care unit was situated. The elevator door opened, and Richard looked at me expectantly.

"Uh, yeah," I stuttered, trying not to look at her. "Fine." She quickly exited the elevator and didn't look back, and Richard followed her out.

"Nice lady."

"I'm not clearing you for surgery."

He looked at me defiantly. "Okay, fine, I can catch up on my paperwork." He pushed the hat on his head so that it partially concealed his eyes, bearing a strong resemblance to a pimp. I laughed as the elevator doors closed and Richard stalked away.

Addison had put on a brave face for Richard, but the meeting this evening definitely had her shaken up. I felt a momentary pang of sympathy until I spotted two nurses whispering excitedly in the corner of the elevator. As soon as they felt my eyes pass over my face they quickly stopped talking and stared at each other. Nothing could ruin my morning more quickly than being the topic of hospital gossip.

I would give Addison her consult, but not without making her wait. She was on my turf and any work we did together was going to be on my terms. When I saw a new copy of _Neuropathology Quarterly_ sitting on my desk, I took the time to peruse it. There were a few articles of minor interest – an ad recruiting patients for an Alzheimer's study, a proposal for a new protocol in dealing with seizures caused by inoperable tumors, and the dates of next year's Neuroscience Convention. When I reached the back cover, having done nothing productive in the last hour (apart from shooting a brief smile – unreturned - at Meredith), I decided I should probably head upstairs for the consult.

Heading up the stairs, I heard a group of residents talking. I rolled my eyes – I really was not in the mood for this again. But listening, I was relieved to hear they weren't talking about me.

"What was all that going on in the pit?" one of them, a tall male, asked.

"You didn't hear? I thought the whole hospital knew!" his buddy replied. I was intrigued now.

"That was Ellis Grey," a short, quiet female resident whispered.

"You mean THE Ellis Grey? I would've thought she wouldn't want to cause a scene."

"Well, that's the juicy part. Apparently she has Alzheimer's and she still thinks she's a resident."

"But she's not in for the Alzheimer's, they think it's diverticulitis."

"I heard she's Meredith Grey's mother."

_Oh no._ Is that why she regarded me coldly when I saw her by the nurse's station? I wondered how she was holding up. Meredith hadn't wanted anyone to know about her mother. And now, apparently, Ellis was causing a scene that was impossible for anyone to ignore.

I wanted to go help her, be her friend. Problem was I didn't know how to do that without stepping over the line. I would just have to be there if she needed me, and respect her space if she didn't.

I was so preoccupied with my thoughts about Meredith that I completely forgot why I was going to the NICU until I was there.

Izzie Stevens handed me the chart as I walked into the room to find a very frail-looking premature baby. This baby was in no shape to undergo surgery, and Addison knew that better than anyone. I read it carefully as Stevens adjusted one of the monitor leads hooked up to the baby.

"Where's the mother?" I asked. Normally new parents never left the NICU when the newborn was this small and fragile.

"Gone," Addison admitted. "Stuck around long enough to get the kid all strung out and then took off. Nice, huh?"

"Addison!" I said sharply. The baby was a lost cause, and she knew it. She was just wasting my time and putting that poor child through the wringer to do so. I was floored at her selfishness.

She didn't look at me, just kept her eyes on the baby. "Derek, I know it's a long shot. I know that."

"You told me that you had a newborn with an invasive mass. You didn't tell me she's premature, underweight, and addicted to narcotics. There is no way that this baby is going to survive spinal surgery." I handed the chart back to Stevens and tried to feel around the baby's spine. She was so delicate, I could see the ridge of each bone in her tiny body. I shook my head. "She's a mess – she's got meningitis, seizures – she's gonna live a short and painful life."

"You don't know that – " she began to argue.

"It is my job to know that," I retorted.

"You're not God, Derek."

"Excuse me," I snapped.

"I'm sorry, honey, but you're not, you don't get to decide –"

"Wait, did you just call me honey? D-don't call me honey." At that moment, it didn't matter to me that an intern, one of Meredith's roommates, was standing right there. I couldn't believe that Addison would call me up for a consult on a whim for a patient who had no realistic life ahead of them and then insult me for giving her my opinion.

"Fine, you're not God, Dr. Shepherd," she said, faltering. I had hit a nerve. "Look, if the patient has any chance at survival, which I think she does, then you have a responsibility to…"

"Don't talk to me about responsibility," I shot back.

"You took an oath, Derek –"

"Oh, and don't you _dare_ talk to me about oaths." I could not believe her audacity. Maybe I was making it too personal, but dammit, cheating on me with my best friend also sends a pretty personal statement.

"Derek, I messed up." I smiled, and nodded. _Damn right you did._ "People mess up."

"You slept with my best friend on my favorite sheets."

"The flannel sheets? You hate the flannel sheets."

There it was, the reason for the divorce. It went deeper than the sheets though. Our entire relationship consisted of Addison telling me what I liked, deciding things for me, and running my life. Maybe it was my fault for marrying her. Maybe I thought that's what wives did. That's why I began to dread coming home, why I worked such long hours at my practice in New York, and why one day I walked into my bedroom and my entire life had changed.

"No, I love the sheets. I did."

"No, you like the Italian sheets with the paisley."

"Can we just stop talking about the sheets?"

"Fine."

"I'm sorry, I'm just gonna go." Addison looked up at Stevens, and realized that she forgot the intern had been standing there the entire time. "I'll just go and check on the labs."

I waited for Izzie to leave and then looked at Addison, propped up on her elbow on the incubator, looking defeated.

"Addison, don't do this."

"Derek, look, she's a fighter! Look how far she's come already!"

"Don't get attached, just don't get involved. Don't make her life more painful than it already is."

And suddenly, we weren't talking about the preemie in the incubator anymore.

"Derek, please, she has nobody. She needs someone to fight for her."

I refused to look into her eyes and see her eyes, asking for help…and forgiveness.

"She's too far gone. You have to let her go." I turned to walk out of the room. "Let her go in peace."

I heard her sigh of defeat. "Fine Derek, walk away." I watched as another baby was being wheeled into the NICU, who could maybe distract Addison from chasing after long shots.

"It's what you do best," she whispered. I left, refusing to look back and pretending not to hear.

I went downstairs to check the chart on my only remaining post-op from my last surgery, and finding everything well, signed the discharge papers. I returned the chart to the nurses' station and went to look and see if I had any other follow-ups or consults waiting in the wings. Just as I was about to lament the lack of work there was for me to do, I heard a voice.

"Dr. Shepherd?"

I turned around and saw her. "Meredith," I breathed. The tension was etched all over her face. I sighed. "I heard. Is it true?"

"Yeah. Secret's out. World travels fast around this place."

I exhaled deeply, just looking at her. Wishing I could make it better, and take away some of her pain.

"Dr. Shepherd…"

"You don't have to call me Dr. Shepherd," I whispered, walking over to her.

"Dr. Shepherd, I want in on a surgical case." She never broke eye contact. Her voice had a tired edge to it. "I can't just do nothing all day." She inhaled deeply. "And you owe me this."

I just gazed at her. I owed her this and so much more. She misunderstood my hesitation.

"And I never ask you for anything like this, so…"

"I have an ETS this afternoon, you'll scrub in." I had a patient, Kelly Roche, who could not control her blushing reflex and was scheduled for an endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy. Karev was currently on the case, but Meredith would bring some much needed sympathy to the table.

She gave me a slight smile, and I leaned in subtly as I walked away to breathe in her scent. If this was the only way she'd let me help her, I would just have to take it.

Before I checked in on Kelly, there was one more thing I needed to do before I forgot. I went to my office and picked up the _Neuropathology Quarterly_ and skimmed through the pages until I found the page I was looking for, and then ripped it out and attached it to my filing cabinet with a magnet.

Ellis Grey had early onset Alzheimer's, which suggested a genetic cause, or at least a predisposition. As her daughter, Meredith could be at a greater risk of developing the disease. At best, entering Ellis Grey in an Alzheimer's clinical trial would yield a cure and prevent the suffering of millions – including, potentially, Meredith. At worst, I would show Meredith that I cared. I made a mental note to call the principal investigator of the study tomorrow.

When I got to Kelly's room, Karev was doing a pre-op examination for any signs of possible infection or weakness that could compromise the surgery. He was doing a good job and appeared to not be antagonizing the patient, so I let him be.

"Hey, Kelly," I called in cheerfully. I smiled at her.

"Dr. Shep…" Her cheeks flushed brilliant red and she sighed. "Dr. Shepherd." This was the reason Kelly had come to me for help. ETS wasn't a surgery I would ever actively advocate, as the procedure actually involved severing a nerve in hopes of disabling some of its effects. In cases like Kelly's, though, when the alternative was a crippling social phobia, I understood its appeal. Kelly had a crush on me, and her sympathetic nervous system's response whenever I entered the room made that perfectly clear to everyone around her.

Kelly quickly began fanning her face, vainly trying to stop the blushing. "I'm sorry." I heard Meredith enter the room behind me.

"Dammit," she whispered, looking incredibly ashamed.

"Kelly," I said softly, trying to put her at ease.

"Yeah?" she responded, still avoiding eye contact in fear of making the problem worse.

"Kelly, this might be the last time that ever happens." I smiled at her again. She was really charming, the way she was so concerned with how easily her emotions showed.

She smiled back, briefly, and then turned to look away.

"How are her labs?" I turned my attention to Karev.

"H&H are stable," he replied, arms folded. "Chest x-ray shows no acute process."

"Good," I nodded. I looked back to Kelly. "You ready to go?"

"Are you kidding? I've been ready since the third grade."

"Did you read the literature I gave you?" She nodded. "You understand the possible side effects?"

"Compensatory sweating of the back, abdomen, thighs, and legs, possible gustatory sweating, Horner's syndrome occurs in less than one percent of patients, brachial plexus injury." I looked to Alex and Meredith, smiling. Both were astounded – Kelly knew the possible complications better than they did. "Pneumothorax and hemothorax are highly unlikely, but possible side effects of the surgery."

"You did your homework." I turned back to the interns. "Take her to pre-op, I'll alert the OR."

As I left the room, I saw Izzie Stevens hustling down the hall. When she saw my face, her eyes flashed, and she hurried over to me.

"Dr. Shepherd," she said, handing me the papers she held. "I was on my way to give these to Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd, but you should probably see them too."

I looked over the lab results. "She's got an infection on top of everything else."

"Looks like she's not going to make it," she said miserably.

"You'd better get these to Addison. Thanks, Dr. Stevens." I gave her a small smile. Stevens was going to be a great doctor, she listened to her patients and caught things that others wouldn't. Unfortunately, one of the bad sides to that was that she would feel all of a patient's setbacks right along with them.

I watched the water flow off my hands and into the surgical sink as I scrubbed in. I was hoping that with the preemie being beyond help and me making myself abundantly clear that she was not welcome in Seattle that Addison would just agree to the terms of divorce and get out as quickly as she came. This morning had made it obvious – nothing had changed between us since I'd left New York. I found her just as overbearing and self-centered after two months apart as I did when we were together. There was nothing left, and I hoped Addison would realize that, too.

Karev was bringing the patient down, so I wasn't surprised when Meredith came quietly into the scrub room. She secured her hair under a scrub cap and tied the mask around her face, then began to wash her hands.

"You know, with everything that went on in my mother," she glanced up at me, "I totally forgot to ask you how New York was. Was your family happy to see you?"

I smiled, hoping she could see it in my eyes since she couldn't see through my surgical mask.

"It could have gone better," I said, honestly. "I can't seem to get away anywhere. All of my problems just seem to follow me around. I can't win."

"I also never apologized for calling you a polygamist." I could hear her grin in her words. "I'm guessing your sister loved that, especially since she didn't seem to like me much anyway."

"Nancy and Addison were best friends." I stopped myself. "They_ are_ best friends. I think when you go in one person's side, you tend not to look favorably upon the other person – no matter how favorable they are."

"Derek, I know it's not my business, and it may be too much to ask, but as your _friend_ –" she put special emphasis on the word "- if your wife was the one who cheated, why did she come back for you?"

"You've talked to her. What did she tell you?"

"She said that she did it for the attention."

"And what that tells me is that she thinks so little of her vows that she feels she can break them to get me to pay attention to her. I don't want to be in a marriage where there are rules that can be broken at one's convenience."

"I just want to say – she's a much nicer person than I expected her to be after…that night."

I smiled a little, but finished scrubbing in and entered the OR to get gowned and gloved up.

The surgery itself was unlike the ones I do on a regular basis – for one, this procedure does not require a craniotomy. Instead, I made two incisions near Kelly's ribcage – one for the endoscope and one for the surgical instruments. Beyond that, it is a relatively simple procedure – the hardest part is navigating the instrument through the small hole using only a camera for guidance.

Once the scope was in, I began teaching my interns.

"Okay, Dr. Karev, if we're going to stop her blushing, we have to expose the sympathetic ganglion chain which resides where?" _As if where the instruments were positioned wasn't a big hint…_

"It's time to clear me for surgery, Shepherd." Richard was standing in my OR without so much as a hello. It was the height of OR manners that you wait until addressed to speak to someone with their hands – or in my case, instruments – in a patient.

"What?"

"I know you heard me, I'm standing right here."

_What was Richard's problem?_

"Chief, I'm a little busy here, we'll talk about it later."

"Just give a verbal okay," he said, walking over and staring me down, "and we can…"

"I cannot do that!" I argued.

"I am your Chief of Surgery, this is not a request," he threatened.

"With all due respect, sir," I responded in the same tone, "in this situation, I am not your subordinate. I am your doctor. One week after brain surgery, you are not ready to resume medical practice."

He leaned in close. "It's a simple procedure, a needle biopsy. A resident could do it."

"Then let a resident do it. What am I missing here?" I glared at him, trying in vain to get him to recognize I was trying to perform surgery.

Richard shot a glance at Meredith and looked away. There was a brief silence.

"It's for my mother, isn't it?" she asked, resigned. Richard didn't confirm or deny it, just looked down. "You think she has cancer."

Richard couldn't make eye contact with her. "George needs your signature."

Meredith nodded and left to go sign the consent form. I waited until she was out of earshot.

"Look, Richard I know she's your friend," I turned back to the endoscope display, "but I'm not clearing you for surgery."

"Fine," he conceded. He quickly left the OR. What could he have been thinking? Even as simple a procedure as a needle biopsy carried risk, and it certainly wasn't something to ruin a career or recovery over.

Meredith returned five minutes later, just as I had separated the nerve bundle in question.

"Dr. Grey, that must have been a very long consent form or you are very thorough with your fine print."

"I'm sorry, Dr. Shepherd, it's just that I was told my best friend is being operated on by the other Dr. Shepherd."

"Addison?" I asked. "What happened to Dr. Yang?"

"Apparently she collapsed in the middle of Dr. Burke's surgery."

"But why is Addison operating on her?" I looked at Meredith, whose beautiful blue eyes were pleading with me to understand, because she couldn't say it in front of all these people. My eyes softened. I understood – Addison did one thing with women and she did it very well – and that was why she was operating on Cristina.

"Do you need to leave, Dr. Grey? We're almost finished here."

"No," she sighed, resuming her place across the table from me. "No, I think now I need to be here even more." She watched the screen as I severed the isolated nerve bundle with a quick slice.

"And there it is. Dr. Grey, can you tell me what other ailments can be treated with ETS?"

"Hypohidrosis, Raynaud's syndrome, and reflex sympathetic dystrophy – basically anything having to do with sympathetic nerve function above the chest."

"Very good, Dr. Grey, you know almost as much about this procedure as the patient does." I gently retracted the instrument wand and the endoscope from their respective incisions. "And now, you and Karev can practice your sutures. All we have to do is close."

I had just finished scrubbing out as Alex and Meredith returned from their sutures.

"Can you do the follow-up?" Meredith asked her fellow intern. "I wanna check on Cristina."

"Yeah," Karev said casually, wandering over to wash his hands. "You know what's wrong with her?"

Her eyes welled up, just the tiniest bit, and I put my hands on her forearms and just held her for a split second. She looked down at my hands, angry, and I quickly pulled them away.

"Don't –" she began.

"Sorry," I said quickly.

"Don't be sorry," she spat back as she ran her hands under the scrub sink. "I'm so tired of you being sorry. Just don't do it."

"Dr. Grey," I warned. Karev was standing right there, he could hear all of it, and by now he must have an inkling of what was going on.

"Dr. Grey, seriously?" she asked bitterly. She looked where my eyes were. "Are you concerned about Alex finding out about us? Is that what matters to you? Do you really think he cares?" She turned to face him.

"Alex, do you care that I was the intern stupid enough to screw the married attending?"

To his credit, Karev's face remained neutral.

"No."

She smirked at me, smug over proving her point.

"It's okay…" I tried.

"It's _not_ okay. You have a wife who's not easy to hate." She began drying her hands so ferociously that she was ripping up the paper towels. "Who's annoyingly kind, and painfully smart, and currently saving my friend's life." I could feel Karev stifling laughter behind me.

"Meredith, just…"

"Don't! Stop talking to me like you're my boyfriend!" She punctuated each word with a wave of her arms, which would have been charming if she hadn't been pissed off at me. "We are supposed to be friends, but you just keep stepping over the line. Maybe if you had paid your freaking wife as much as attention as you seem to pay me, none of us would be in this situation right now." She stormed out of the scrub room.

"Dude," Karev said, chuckling. "That was rough."

I slowly turned and glared at Karev. "I believe you're still on my service today, Karev, so you'd best get out of my sight and do a follow-up on that patient before you make another stupid comment." I pushed the door to the scrub room open with unnecessary force and ripped my favorite ferry boat scrub cap off my head.

She had valid points. I had been constantly struggling with the new "look but don't touch" aspect of our relationship and I had gone too far. I had promised her space, I had promised her friendship, and because I couldn't control myself and let her be, she was pissed at me. And part of that explosion may have been the fact that her mother could have cancer and her best friend was under the knife of a woman who had every reason to hate her. But I certainly wasn't helping her.

I was certain about one thing though. She'd only thrown in the bit about the divorce to make it sting. The circumstances may not have been desirable but she'd been a willing participant. She came to hear my side of the story, she chose to be friends. She could have cut it off and I had expected her to. But she hadn't, and that had to mean something.

My BlackBerry buzzed and I looked to see what it was.

A text from John: _don't forget, Archfield at 5:30._

Like I needed reminding.

I later found myself in the NICU with the preemie, checking in on her while Addison was in surgery. Incredibly, she seemed to be rallying – not by much, but improvement nonetheless. It was good, I needed a distraction – I had just spent the last half hour on the catwalk, making up new rules for how I would interact with Meredith in the future.

_Rule #1: No touching._

_Rule #2: Approach only when approached._

_Rule #3: Lighthearted banter only unless otherwise indicated._

_Rule #4: Stop making things worse._

I didn't even notice when Addison snuck into the room in her pink scrubs. I'd never liked the color on her – it looked too odd when compared to her hair. And here at Seattle Grace it only served to further isolate her from everyone who belonged here.

A disbelieving smile stole across her face as she approached the monitors.

"Look at that," she whispered, awed. "BP is stabilizing."

"She's stronger since this morning." I removed my hands from the incubator. "There's no reason why she should be stronger since this morning." I took the infant's chart and sat in the rocking chair in the corner of the room to annotate it.

"She's really beautiful, isn't she?"

I surveyed her over the chart. Her hand flitted into the incubator as the baby wrapped her tiny fingers around one of Addison's own.

"I'll tell you what, if she makes it through the night and has a little bit more strength, I'll operate." She turned to look at me, eyes hopeful. "But only on one condition."

"Anything – she needs the chance, to prove herself."

"You have to agree to sign the divorce papers."

"Derek!" she hissed. "You cannot use a life-saving procedure for an infant to coerce me into giving up on our marriage. It is unethical and despicable and wrong!"

"Ah, but here's the thing, Addie." I rocked back in the chair. "There are four other neurosurgical attendings in this hospital, all of whom are capable of performing this surgery. But if you want me, you're going to have to motivate me."

"Why – why do you want to hurt me so badly?" she asked, deflated.

"It's been two months, Addison. We've been separated for two months and all of a sudden you feel that you can simply waltz back into my life and expect me to let you? And just go back to the way things were?" I put the chart on the table next to the chair and folded my arms. "We're going to get divorced either way, but with your cooperation this could be a lot less painful for both of us. Of course, you're too stubborn to realize that, so the only way I'm going to get through to you is to make it worth something you really want, which is what has led us here."

"Derek," she said, walking over to the chair and bending over, enveloping me in her warmth, "all I know is that I still love you." She slowly lowered herself and tilted her head, and before I even knew what was coming her lips were pressing softly against mine. For a moment, the familiarity of it all engulfed me and life seemed simple again. But then I found myself expecting to see Meredith on the other end of the kiss and seeing Addison instead brought me back to reality. My hands found Addison's cheeks and slowly, gently pushed her away.

"I can't, Addison." I stood up, and she retreated a few steps, taken aback. "That part of my life is over."

The tears that had been welling in her eyes gently spilled down her cheeks.

"I can't sign the papers, Derek. You're my family. We've been married for eleven years – that is eleven birthdays, eleven Thanksgivings, and eleven Christmases. And then one day I'm supposed to sign a piece of paper and end my family? A person doesn't do that! I'm entitled to uncertainty and painful doubt, and a little understanding from you would be nice."

She'd called my bluff, my awful, awful bluff. And now neither of us was where we wanted to be. Neither of us was satisfied. Neither of us was happy.

"I'll see you later, at the Archfield." I went to leave, and paused at the door. "Because I've had two months of uncertainty and painful doubt, and now I just want it to end."

Karev had reported back that Kelly was recovering well, with absolutely no blushing upon her post-op exam. I would check in on her tomorrow morning, and if all was well she would probably be discharged by this time tomorrow night. I finished up the rest of my open cases and signed off on some expense reports and budget proposals, and by the time I looked at my watch it was 5 o'clock. I packed up and changed back into my street clothes, knowing that if I gave John an aneurysm that I would be the one who would have to go in and fix it.

But as I left the hospital, I saw her. Softly sobbing on a bench despite the cold temperatures. She looked tired and frustrated – and like she needed a friend.

_Rule #5: Stay out of it if it doesn't concern you._

_Rule #6: If she's crying, assume it's because of you, or at least that you're not going to make it stop._

Screw the rules.

"Meredith?" I called softly. I could see her head tilt back slightly as she exhaled. It wasn't a positive sign but I kept going regardless. I walked up behind the bench and did not come closer.

"Meredith," I beckoned.

"Don't," she asked, defeated. "Please, please just don't say anything." She began crying again.

I sighed, but respected her wishes. "Okay." I looked at her, and then looked across the parking lot to where the Archfield was, just two blocks away. I felt like I couldn't leave her – but she didn't want me. Slowly, reluctantly, I started to walk away when she got up and approached.

"It's just that I had to sit by Cristina's bedside and I yelled at you and I wished my mother had cancer today." She started sobbing freely. "None of which were things I wanted to do today. Now I'm just this exhausted, crying, horrible person who pushes everyone away." She looked up at me. "I pushed you away, and you were just…trying to help. And I shouldn't have done that…because…"

One minute, my heart was breaking for her, wishing that she didn't have to do this, wishing I could just hold her and make everything right, while simultaneously admiring the brilliant blue her eyes turned when she cried. The next minute, her fingers were laced in my hair, and she was kissing me sweetly, gently. There was no anger or harshness, just regret.

She broke the kiss, but it wasn't hurried like how I stopped Addison. It was just natural.

"I don't want to be angry with you anymore," she said simply, and then like that, she was back inside the hospital, leaving me standing in the parking lot without words.


End file.
